By Randy Moore, Publisher –  Congratulations to Garden of the Arts (GOTA) for earning an Englewood Spirit Award for 2024. The owners Matt Beebe and Dena Kittelson (photo) embody our appreciation of art and nature. GOTA includes a retail location at 460 W. Dearborn Street and a certified plant nursery in the Englewood Arts District. The couple hosts monthly garden tours of their food forest demonstration garden. Dena is also an artist influencing the mix of products available at their retail store including  visual art items, vibrant gift cards, glassware, and houseplants.

I’m also pleased to announce the Venice Farmers Market is receiving our Venice Spirit Award for 2024. Morgan Bettes, Antonio Hernandez and the rest of the team with Independent Jones have done a brilliant job in improving all facets of the region’s popular market. The Venice Farmers Market is open 8am to 1pm every Saturday year-round.

All of our awards acknowledge local individuals, businesses and nonprofits that are having a positive impact on the health and happiness of our community. You can see a list of our prior award winners on the home page of our websites for Englewood Healthy Living and South County Healthy Living.

Our other awards include the Wildlife Champion Award and the Inspiring Artist Award. We also present lifetime achievement awards in Englewood and Venice. The inaugural recipient of our Englewood Lee Reid Lifetime Achievement Award was the namesake Lee Reid (founder of Reid’s Health Foods formerly known as Reid’s Nutrition). The most recent recipient is retired teacher and watercolor painter, Linda Soderquist.

Here are some of the books I enjoyed reading recently: Feel Free by Zadie Smith, Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari, Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons, The Snow Leopard by Peter Matthiessen, and Ageless Soul by Thomas Moore. I’ve read 230 books since launching my current reading program in July 2022. My longer term goal is to read 1,000 books.

I enjoy the basic pleasure and cognitive fitness that comes from reading. Reading books written by authors from around the world also helps me to be better informed about human nature, history, geography, diverse cultures, science, religion, politics, and more.

I’m encouraged to see more Americans pushing back on the misguided efforts by some groups to ban books and historical facts that make them uncomfortable. Book banning should be restricted to the home and not local schools and libraries. Let’s ban unwarranted fear and leave books and historical facts alone.

Wishing you the best for a healthy and meaningful spring and summer.