Join us at scenic MOHI Ranch, an expansive vineyard and small farm near Morgan Hill, for our annual celebration on Sunday, September 27, 2026, from 11:00 a.m.-2:00 p.m.
This amazing event brings together more than 250 community leaders, partners, officials, and friends to support Green Foothills programs that protect local nature and wildlife. Our guest speaker this year is Obi Kaufmann, the award-winning author, artist, and naturalist, who will share his thoughts on how urgent environmental campaigns connect to poetry, place, and policy movements at every level, from local to global.
Enjoy good food, learn about our work, and mingle in a beautiful open-air setting. Proceeds cover a significant portion of our annual budget, so attending this event is a great way to help Green Foothills.
Sponsorship opportunities are now available! Tickets go on sale July 9. Questions? Contact Jocelyn Rodriguez at 650.968.7243 or [email protected].
About Our 2026 Guest Speaker
Obi Kaufmann
Obi Kaufmann is an award-winning author of many best-selling books on California’s ecology, biodiversity, and geography. Most famously, his 2017 book The California Field Atlas, currently in its eighth printing, recontextualized popular ideas about what he calls “California’s more-than-human world.”
Following his initial Field Atlas, his subsequent books include 2019’s State of Water—Understanding California’s Most Precious Resource, followed by three more Field Atlases called the California Lands Trilogy: The Forests of California, The Coasts of California, and The Deserts of California. In the Lands trilogy, Obi successfully realized his vision to present a comprehensive survey of California’s physiography and biogeography, including its evolutionary past and unfolding future. His latest book, 2024’s The State of Fire, Why California Burns, is among his most popular and timely books to date.
Obi regularly travels the state, and when he is not backpacking, he gives talks and hosts seminars in his “Poetry, Place and Policy” series, engaging local communities on pressing issues in the watershed. His seventh book, California Inside Out, Mapping and Ecology of Mind, will be out in the Fall of 2026..
Our Growing List of Nature’s Inspiration 2026 Sponsors
Sponsorships for 2026 are now on sale! Go to our sponsor or pledge page to sign up. For more information, contact [email protected].
Nature’s Inspiration underwrites a significant portion of Green Foothills’ annual expenses. We depend on funds raised from this event to support our work so that we can create the greatest impact. Your generous support makes it possible for us to champion climate resilience and biodiversity through the protection of open space and natural resources in San Mateo, Santa Clara, and San Benito Counties. Since 1962, our advocacy has resulted in the permanent protection of more than 200,000 acres.
2026 Nature’s Inspiration Sponsors
O’Brien Family Charitable Fund
KPMG Laura Wells
Lisa and Edward Munro Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District Peninsula Open Space Trust Nancy and Greg Serrurier
Stephen Abbors Susan Hansch and Richard Wright
Councilmember David Cohen Michael and Romelia Delay Marshall Dinowitz Jean Forstner and Matson Wade Jerry Hearn and Rebecca Reynolds Margaret and Jamis MacNiven Dan and Helen Quinn Jeffrey Segall and Helen He Don Weden
Colorprint Barbara C. Erny Melissa Hippard Arthur Keller Carolyn Straub and Stephen McHenry Arpana Tiwari Charles Tomberg Zoe Kersteen-Tucker and George Tucker Charles Schmuck Mariquita West James Wickett and Magdalena Yesil
From our founding more than 60 years ago until today, Green Foothills has been the local, vocal and effective protector of this region’s natural wonders. We have all benefited tremendously from the work of Green Foothills.
Many of the most important decisions affecting our natural environment involve land use decisions made by our local governments. For more than 60 years, Green Foothills and its allies have worked diligently and effectively to assure that local government decisions in Santa Clara and San Mateo Counties have protected open space and prevented sprawl.
I am grateful for the opportunities that Green Foothills opens up for sincere and organized acts of solidarity that collectively over time will result in change and movement. As a Chicana/Mexika mother and dancer, on the red road, Green Foothills inspires me to take action and center Mother Nature and First Peoples in this struggle to retain land as free and sacred.
The work of Green Foothills is legendary and extremely environmentally significant to efforts to address climate change.
My support for Green Foothills stems from our reliable long-term passionate commitment to protect local open space now and in the future. This in turn benefits our Wildlife friends and the Earth, essential partners of the human race!
We owe a debt of gratitude to Green Foothills for their decades-long work standing up for nature and people. They have been effective advocates for the region’s open space, farmland, and natural resources, protecting our region’s natural heritage for future generations. As we experience the growing effects of climate change, the role Green Foothills plays as the conscience of the community will be needed more than ever.
