For the fourth year, I had the great honor of being invited to attend the Goldman Environmental Prize and was (as always) blown away by the work the winners are doing and their amazing enthusiasm. It's always inspiring and always a truly beautiful evening. I'm grateful to my friends who have kept me on the invite list for the past several years!
This year, much of the event was spent honoring the recently passed Richard Goldman, the co-founder of the prize. There have been special guests in the past (Robert Redford, Arnold Schwarzenegger, former prize winner Wangari Maathai) but, this year, the focus was really on the family and Richard Goldman, with good reason.
This year, I was very moved by Ursula Sladek, a German former teacher who helped her community buy out the energy grid and now is the head of the first cooperatively owned renewable power supply company, in Germany. Her video showed her humility and sense of humor and when she walked on stage with walking sticks I felt her strength! I also appreciated Hilton Kelley who used to live in San Francisco but, moved back to his hometown of Port Arthur, Texas to help children and families fight the illness causing pollution of that community which borders several petro-chemical plants.
While I never end up snapping photos, the event is something I will never forget and will come back to again and again to inspire myself toward action in this big, big world!
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