Owls, hawks, sharks, snakes, jellyfish and an endangered sea turtle will be among the wild company at Living Coast Discovery Center’s annual fundraising Farm to Bay event on Aug. 2 in Chula Vista. (Photo courtesy of Living Coast Discovery Center)
For one evening in August, San Diegans get the chance to be the dinner guests of slithering snakes, swimming sharks, eagle-eyed hawks and jumping jellyfish at a seaside soiree in their natural habitat.
Chula Vista’s Living Coast Discovery Center is convening the coast once again for what’s become a local summer tradition: a sunset dinner where guests can dine among the bay at its zoo and aquarium. Set in the heart of the marshlands at the San Diego Bay National Wildlife Refuge, the center’s Farm to Bay dinner on Aug. 2 promises an evening experience with wild company — for the 16th year in a row.
Roughly 60 endangered green sea turtles, like Emerald from Living Coast Discovery Center, call San Diego Bay home. (Photo courtesy of Living Coast Discovery Center)
Farm to Bay’s highlight is its guest list, which is packed with the native species that make San Diego the most biologically rich county in the continental United States. Attendees will get the chance to interact up close and personal with the center’s animal ambassadors as they roam the dozens of local food and wine booths that will set up shop at the center.
As for the star of the show? Naturally, that’s Emerald, the center’s resident Atlantic green sea turtle and a rare representative of the endangered species that calls San Diego Bay home.
Fundraiser ‘more important than ever’
Farm to Bay won’t just be a celebration of the coast. It’ll also be held in support of it, as the nonprofit center’s largest fundraiser of the year.
All proceeds — from tickets to auctions — will go to support the dinner’s wild guests of honor, as well as the camps, school trips and workshops the center holds to educate San Diegans about the spectrum of species they share the coast with.
Last year’s Farm to Bay raised over $128,000 for the dinner’s animal guests. This year, the center said the fundraiser is even more essential as the Trump administration has clawed back more than $80 million in funding from the county’s nonprofits.
All proceeds from August’s Farm to Bay dinner will help support the event’s animal ambassadors. (Photo courtesy of Living Coast Discovery Center)
As the federal government has slashed the grants and other government funding sources that San Diego nonprofits rely on to survive in recent months, the cuts have forced many local nonprofits to stop or scale back services. As they’ve lost federal funds, many nonprofits, like Living Coast, have turned to local donors to fill the gap.
Funds from local foundations and sponsors enable Living Coast Discovery Center to offer free field trips, composting workshops and climate-change classes to local low-income schools. (Photo courtesy of Living Coast Discovery Center)
“The pot is getting smaller for grants, and it’s becoming reliant on the fundraising that we’re doing and getting our name out there and making sure people are aware of our mission,” said Sadie Klughers, the center’s marketing and communications manager.
“So, this event is really crucial to spreading the word about the mission and hopefully subsidizing some of the grants that we might not be able to acquire in the coming year.”
Klughers said the funds from Farm to Bay will enable the center to keep providing field trips and other educational programs at little to no cost for many local schools.
By the bay, for the bay
As guests watch the golden-hour sun sink to sunset over San Diego Bay, a legion of workers and volunteers will be sorting through all the trash generated by the dinner to ensure as much waste as possible gets recycled or composted.
It’s all part of the center’s commitment for Farm to Bay to be a zero-waste event — meaning that less than one in 10 trash items must go to landfills. The rest have to be recycled or composted.
A team of workers and volunteers will sort through all of the trash at Farm to Bay by hand to make sure as much waste as possible is recycled or composted. (Photo courtesy of Living Coast Discovery Center)
To meet that goal, Farm to Bay vendors — from street-food staple House of Bao to sweet shop Babycakes — will be serving up dishes on reusable materials. It’s all in an effort to ensure Farm to Bay honors the coastal environment that Living Center calls home.
Farm to Bay has successfully hit the zero-waste benchmark every year it’s been held, according to Klughers. Last year, it shattered that goal, with only one in 20 trash items going to the landfill.
Tickets
The food and wine sampling event is adults only. Guests must be aged 21 or over to attend. (Photo courtesy of Living Coast Discovery Center)
Guests can purchase tickets to this year’s Farm to Bay at Living Coast’s website. Tickets for the dinner, which will be held at the center from 4-7:30 p.m. on Aug. 2, go for $120. The event is for guests age 21 or over only.