(gentle music) - My father was always looking for how the population was hurting or helping nature.

- We're trying to connect people to their food systems, to seasonality, to locality, to what it means to support good farming practices and craftspeople and artisans.

- I feel inspired every day by the people I work with and the students I have.

- [Host] Bay Area Bountiful is about agriculture.

It's about feeding us.

It's about land and water.

It's about the health of our planet.

It's about stories that matter.

(gentle music) Bay Area Bountiful.

Cultivate, celebrate, connect.

- [Host] Bay Area Bountiful is made possible in part by Rocky the Free Range Chicken and Rosie the Original Organic Chicken, the Sonoma County Agricultural Preservation and Open Space District, Made Local magazine, and Sonoma County Go Local, and through the generous support of Sonoma Water.

- Our Bay Area is indeed bountiful with scenic vistas, rich agricultural heritage and food resources, and innovative game changers leading the way to a healthy, more equitable way of life.

As a boy, the natural beauty of wild places around the bay inspired conservationist Dr. Martin Griffin, to devote his life to preserving them.

Marty and wife, Joyce, now live in Belvedere.

- They were the most beautiful places in the world that I'd ever seen and I determined trying to protect them from being Los Angelesized.

- And Marty has always loved nature and everything is about nature and he's promoted that through everything he's done.

- My father appreciates that our wellbeing is so closely tied to the health of our environment.

- [Host] Dr. Griffin wrote a book about his environmental work, "Saving the Marin Sonoma Coast".

Part one tells how a newly formed Marin Audubon Society asked him to help stop development plans around Richardson Bay.

Today, the Richardson Bay Audubon Center and Sanctuary overlooks waters saved from landfill.

(light music) Saving Bolinas Lagoon was a defining moment in Marty's notable career.

- Got acquainted with the Bolinas Lagoon and stopped a huge subdivision that was going to be there for 40,000 people.

- We are at the Martin Griffin Preserve on Bolinas Lagoon.

Marty Griffin is a visionary in understanding that we need to preserve important places for people and for wildlife.

Well, it originally became a preserve because it was one of the largest heron and egret rookeries anywhere in the West.

Because of his action and others, Marin remains a really well-protected, beautiful place for all to enjoy.

- [Host] The fight to prevent the urbanization of West Marin is documented in the film, "Rebels with a Cause".

- When the Point Reyes National Seashore was authorized, we formed Audubon Canyon Ranch on Bolinas Lagoon.

Our intention was to block the development of the freeway, so we started to oppose it vigorously.

We have four sanctuaries now on Bolinas Lagoon, and that's named after me.

I appreciate that.

- The area around Point Reyes and Tomales Bay, it was going to be a city that today would be about 150,000 people.

There would be freeways and suburbs and so on.

And Marty and others got together and said, in essence, "No way."

- Next, the battle to save Tomales Bay was probably the biggest land use battle in history.

We were on for seven years and we did stop the development there.

(light music) We remodeled the Hope Barn that was 100 years old and I turned into the winery.

It was used for drawing hops.

- And Marty had the first winery tasting room in Sonoma County.

- [Martin] One of the first.

- Pardon?

- [Martin] One of the first.

- I know, you're modest.

And what's interesting is they cannot tear it down because it's a national landmark.

So it's protected.

- [Host] After purchasing a ranch in Healdsburg, Marty led activism to protect the Russian River.

- Oh my God, you can't believe what was happening to the Russian River.

There were seven or eight mining companies, big mining companies, that were digging deep pits and they were going down 90 feet after gravel.

And this was destroying one of the best steelhead and salmon fisheries.

- One of the most significant lessons I learned from Marty Griffin over my career was how important the sands and gravels of the Russian River are to water quality for the region where that's naturally filtering our water supply.

And his efforts resulted in significant achievements to preserving the region's natural resource and defining iconic Russian River, which provides the lions share of our drinking water for the region.

- [Host] Dr. Griffin studied zoology at UC Berkeley, then attended Stanford School of Medicine.

- Dr. Griffin was in private practice.

He's an internist.

He came back and he got his master's degree in public health.

And after he got his degree here, he was asked by the state to head up the Hepatitis B outbreak and was very successful in eradicating or dealing with the Hepatitis B epidemic at the time.

- I got a job at Sonoma State Hospital in Glen Ellen.

I was a chairman of the Hepatitis B and AIDS task force.

I went to all the different state hospitals and gave courses on how to handle this Hepatitis B.

- He has just a litany of successes, one after another of improving public health and protecting the environment.

Right adjacent to the Hop Kiln Winery, he helped preserve Bishop Ranch, which is a wonderful facility.

It's a true tribute to somebody who funded land preservation, water preservation, throughout the region.

- In 1990, my father donated 44 acres of second growth forest and gravel bars to the Sonoma Land Trust and it's named the Griffin Riparian Preserve to protect the river from future gravel mining insults.

- [Host] When Martin Griffin Preserve was ready to start the first controlled burn on the land, Marty was asked to get things going.

- Marty has not stopped working.

Marty was here to carry that drip torch and put the first fire on the ground to bring good fire back to Martin Griffin Preserve.

- Marty over the years and he did all of his work.

He came to be known as the nature doctor or more colorfully as the doctor with mud on his shoes.

And he was very proud of that.

He liked that a lot, yeah.

- [Host] Today, a beautiful outdoor terrace at the School of Public Health is a gift for Marty and Joyce.

- Joyce and I have contributed a terrace at a new public health building in Berkeley.

Magnificent building.

- There's the egret, egret.

And so the garden has really been designed to reflect Marty's values, to reflect nature and the environment, and how that promotes our health.

- The conservation work is hard and Marty's not afraid of hard work.

- Marty has a compass that's always headed due north and he stays true to that.

And that is a feature that few can claim.

- Dad is still leading a very active life.

He realizes that you need to keep your mind and eye on what's going on.

- Always more to do, but we need to recognize our progress and look at it squarely.

- [Host] To this day, Dr. Marty Griffin is unwavering in his goal of making a difference for people, wildlife, and the environment.

- What this world needs is 50% of the nature protected and reserved because that's really the basis for all life.

(gentle music) (triumphant music) - [Host] Not too far away, Deborah Bertolucci is the superintendent of Geyserville Unified School District and the principal of Geyserville New Tech Academy.

- I'm big into academics, but I love that real world experience.

I think that really helps open students' eyes to the possibilities of what they might want to do in their lives.

See where their path will take them once they leave our campus.

- I've known Ms. Bertolucci since I came here and when I first came, she gave us a tour of the school here with my parents and she was just very enthusiastic about the campus.

And I really was like, "Okay, I want to come here."

- I think she's a great leader.

I see how receptive she is to new ideas and trying new things.

And as an instructor, that encourages you.

- [Host] As a project-based learning site, Geyserville New Tech Academy encourages hands-on learning through an integrated curriculum approach.

- When people say, "What are you building out there?"

I'm like, "We're building confidence."

Because we bring kids in that didn't know how to use any of the tools, and by the time they leave, they know how to use every tool in the shop.

- A lot of our families work here in the vineyards and so we really want to show our student population what else is out there, what else they can do within industry here.

- I've taken industrial arts and con ag, which was all just like construction agriculture.

So working on the greenhouse out there, building the boxes, hand tilling the soil.

The hands-on, it's just so much more fun.

- [Host] Creating hands-on opportunities for students is an essential part of Debbie's mission as a leader, because she knows firsthand the benefits of jumping head on into projects, discovering what you enjoy, and learning by doing.

- Jumping into admin and superintendent here is typically kind of how my career is.

I started out as a young mother, very young.

I didn't even graduate high school so I worked on that at night to get my diploma.

And then after I substituted, just parent volunteering in classrooms, I'm like, "Oh, my God, this seems amazing."

And went back to school.

I got hired out of the credential program.

So I started here in 1999 as a Math teacher and then I moved into the administration here.

And four months after that, I got superintendent as well.

And so I've been doing this dual role for the last seven years.

- [Host] That initiative and drive has continued to serve Debbie in her pursuit to secure funding and connect students with opportunities.

- Initially, their County Office of Education offered some stipend money for teachers to develop curriculum for a program and which led to our innovative agriculture program here and robotics program.

- I was propositioned to do some innovative ag curriculum.

And within that, I wanted to bring in the tech side of agriculture.

- Use ultrasonic sound to know where it's at.

- [David] Debbie Bertolucci, the administrator, she's very open-minded, very encouraging.

So it's fun for me to figure out, how can I bring this stuff in to try to engage the students?

- Every single elective has a different activity that you do and it's more engaging.

- [David] We're working on the aeroponic towers, the 3D printing, the design, the robotics.

- And this is how it sits in the pipe.

- Hydroponic wall over there that has plants and stuff's going to go in.

And the students are engaged with all that stuff.

- So the water's going to flow up all through this and then it's going to drain out here.

And these are the caps that I made.

- They're getting an integrated science approach to these courses and we have been rewarded for our efforts so far.

And the community's getting more and more involved, more proud of it.

- [Host] Geyserville Unified partnered with and received funding from the Sonoma County Career Technical Education Foundation, secured a $2 million grant from the state for facilities, and got a substantial boost from their local community.

- Our lovely Geyserville community, I went out to them and asked if we could put a bond on the ballot measure and they supported us overwhelmingly and we received over 21 million in funding from our local community.

Now we're busy building this great facility, building our gardens, and just our ability to educate students.

- Because it's more hands-on, I feel like it is more interesting to learn about.

And it's like a better opportunity to be able to do it yourself.

I feel like it makes more sense.

- We're hoping to start our farmer's market in the fall.

And we work a lot with our cafeteria, our culinary program.

So all of the things that we're growing here, we're using and feeding students here as well as hoping to feed our community.

- This is like a work situation here.

If you're late, you're late to work.

If you're not polite, then you're not polite at your workspace.

I can't give you a good recommendation for your job.

- In the spring, we'll have our juniors and seniors out for two weeks, doing special projects within our community and partnering with local businesses.

- I actually will find out tomorrow if I got a job at a office being their bookkeeper.

It's temporary, but it's a step in the direction I want to take.

- Our local partners are just so impressed with the students, their professionalism, the way they conducted themselves, their ability to show up on time and be reliable.

And I really believe this is the beginning of a great partnership.

The Geyserville community looks to this site as kind of their anchor spot.

And once you come here to teach, people want to stay here.

- She has a great rapport with the community and so you just want to help build the team and support it and leave a good legacy.

- You know, I wouldn't be here without a whole team of people supporting me and I'm so inspired by our teachers and students.

- I do really appreciate that she, even though it's a small school, she plays two roles and there's lot to manage and she handles it very well.

And you can definitely see that through what our school looks like.

It's a great place.

- She sits down with the students and she's just more kind and she cares about the students behind.

- I always want to make sure that I'm that support person, so that if staff want to be innovative or try something new, they're able to do that.

- She always takes care of us.

Yeah, no, we can never quit.

- I'm really proud of what we're growing here in our schools and how we can build that for future generations.

So I'm very proud to be a part of Geyserville New Tech and Geyserville Unified.

- [Host] In Healdsburg, Single Thread is a source-focused, farm-driven restaurant rooted in Japanese principles and traditions about hospitality, food culture, and service.

At Single Thread, the relationship between farmer and chef is at the heart of everything they do.

- The Michelin Green Star is really an exciting new distinction.

It's really recognizing restaurants specifically that are focusing on sustainability as part of their core ethos and their core experience.

And for us, it's something, every day it's really built in to what we do.

My role as a chef here is really to tell the story and to translate what Katina does out on the farm.

And her farm team is spending months and months and months to grow something that I have in the kitchen only for a few hours.

So every day here in the restaurant, we're telling the story of today.

This is what's happening on our farm this season, this moment.

This is what's coming around us in Sonoma County that we're the most excited about.

And so we are really steeping the guest into that moment in time.

So it's a sense of place about here in Sonoma County, but also it's a sense of the place and time.

So this moment within the season.

So we're really kind of just translating what the farm does.

And not only telling the story through the flavors and visually and the beauty of everything that they grow, but also their practices.

And so our sustainable practices, Katina's regenerative agriculture, not just what we farm and the final result, but how we go about it.

How we source anything that we have in here.

But in particular, the practices on Katina's farm - We are really focused on bringing biodiversity to this grape growing region.

We're in wine country here.

We're surrounded by vineyards and we're on a 24-acre farm.

So we're able to bring in a lot of biodiversity and help to bring those layers of resiliency and resistance to our environmental changes that we're clearly experiencing.

But we love it so much.

And we really take our jobs as stewards of the land very seriously to not just provide and serve ourselves, but the mark that we can make, the everlasting impact that we can make for many generations to come.

- You know, what we put in the ground is always a discussion and it's a discussion between farmers and chefs, but I would say that ultimately, like the vision that Katina had and continues to have is like really the north star.

You know, at times the restaurant leads what we're doing here.

And at times, we lead what is going to the restaurant.

And I think that it's a lot of fun to be part of that relationship.

So we talk about what's happening here and now.

At least twice a month, we sit down with one of the chefs, if not multiple, but that communication also happens every day.

- We have really been dedicating a lot of energy to creating a language between the farm and the kitchen, between the farmers and the chefs, to be able to provide each other what we need as far as feedback, guidance, just to make sure that we're all on the same page.

We're growing what the chefs want.

The chefs are so incredibly respectful of the hard work of the farm.

And so we just want to make sure that we're constantly providing them with all sources of inspiration and they continue to provide us with that inspiration in return as well.

So we love to go over our recent seasons, what they loved, maybe what they want more of, what we can scale back on, so that we can continue to hone our practices and to refine the language between us.

- Yeah, it's a constant conversation.

We have to look a year ahead of saying, "What do we want to be doing this time next year?"

And then work backwards.

So we're looking really far out.

We're looking to two seasons ahead and then we're also talking about what's happening right now, the daily harvest right now, what's coming, what's coming next week, how we're going to need to change the menu, what things are coming into season, what's going out of season.

So it's always a conversation across many different timelines that are happening simultaneously.

And as Katina said, the farmers are growing what it is that we want and need.

We are, in turn, utilizing the products that the farmers are most excited about harvesting at that moment and they feel are at peak ripeness.

And we are working our creativity and our menu around what the farmers are dictating to us.

So really, Katina and the farm decides the menu that we have at any given time.

We may be coming up with the dishes, but they are deciding the menu.

This is what's ready, this is what we have, this is how much of it we have.

And that drives our creativity.

If we have something in abundance, then we're looking at ways and creating dishes so we can use it abundantly.

If we have something in small quantities, then we're looking at at ways so we can use it in smaller ways and feature it and highlight it.

So they're 100% driving our creativity.

And we as the chefs are really sort of like vessels to really kind of connect the farm and the farmers to our guests sort of through us.

We're telling that story of the farm.

- One of the reasons why we're here and why we really wanted to plant roots here is because of the agricultural community.

It's just so incredibly supportive and inspiring and I wanted to be a part of it.

And we're farming amongst so many different climates and just being able to experience all the diversity here is just so enriching.

- And we're so proud to showcase what's great about Sonoma to the world and to be out there as a restaurant and to really talk about Sonoma and focus on what we do here, to be very authentically tied to our land and this place.

It gives us great pride to go out there into the world and talk about this amazing place that we live.

The incredible winemakers that are here and the incredible artisans and craftspeople here, other chefs, other farmers.

Everything that's done here is just so special.

So we have a lot of pride and to go out into the world to really talk about this place.

Or if you're from here and you're from Northern California wine country, to have a lot of sense of pride of how truly special it is, this place where we live.

- [Host] Using local food for world-class fine dining, supporting students with the opportunities and knowledge to succeed, and committing a lifetime to safeguarding our precious wild lands.

These are some of the remarkable ways that local heroes are giving back in Northern California.

(gentle music) - Dad in his 90s taught himself how to play the accordion.

Today at 102, he plays the accordion.

It's so wonderful to come to the house and I hear the music.

One day, I arrived and I come in and he's all dressed up in his lederhosen (laughs).

(light music)