Community Calendar

The Association for Women in Communications – Santa Barbara (AWC-SB) will honor five distinguished creatives building community through the arts at the 2025 Women of Achievement Awards luncheon at 11:30 a.m. on Wednesday, May 21 at Cabrillo Pavilion. The honorees are: Adriana Arriaga, visual artist, entrepreneur, and activist; Teresa Kuskey, Founder/Artistic Director of La Boheme Dance; Frances Moore, Co-founder/Artistic Director, Santa Barbara Ringshout Project; Melinda Palacio, Santa Barbara Poet Laureate; and Joanne Wasserman, Artistic Director and Conductor, Santa Barbara Choral Society. The honorees’ disciplines include visual art, dance, choral music, traditional ringshout song and movement, and poetry.

The 17th Annual Women of Achievement awards luncheon is made possible by Presenting Sponsor Women Connect4Good.

This year’s Women of Achievement honorees represent the 2025 Women of Achievement theme, “Creative Communication: Building Community Through the Arts.” As individuals and collectively, they employ the arts as an impactful form of communication and a way to bring people together to build community.

The luncheon will feature performances, an art exhibition, and poetry reading showcasing the honorees’ community-building artistic work. Caroline Feraday, award-winning journalist at KCLU Radio, will emcee the event.

Join us on a beautifully paired wine and chocolate experience. This guided tour walks you through the chocolate making process, from bean to bar! Taste the cacao every step of the way and finish with a chocolate and beverage tasting that excitingly pairs three truffles with three sustainably-made, small production wines, selected and poured by our local wine partner, WINECULT.

Attendees will enjoy a welcome drink while we give a brief introduction to our bean-to-bar, dark chocolate making process. Ingredients for decorating will abound and inspire, and you'll learn a few tidbits about how we invent flavor combinations for new delicious, sweet products at our chocolate factory. We will fill chocolate bar molds with luscious 75% dark chocolate, and you will get to decorate chocolate bars with local ingredients, like flowers, salt and fruit. While bars are setting up, we will lead a 20-30 minute chocolate tasting experience while you sip on perfectly paired wines to enhance the flavors. We are happy to provide a non-alcoholic tasting experience for anyone in the group who might require that. Your custom chocolate bars will go home with you in beautiful, resealable Twenty-Four Blackbirds pouches. Don't miss out on this delicious experience!

Unleash your creativity in our Junk Journaling Workshop, where reclaimed and recycled materials become art! Bring your own journal, and we’ll provide a treasure trove of upcycled papers, fabric scraps, vintage ephemera, and more. This open-style workshop lets you craft freely, explore new techniques, and connect with fellow journal enthusiasts. We’ll introduce inspiring junk journaling styles, from layered collages to pocket-filled pages, but the rest is up to your imagination! Whether you're a seasoned journaler or just starting, this is your time to create, relax, and repurpose with purpose.

All materials provided—just bring a journal!

Join us on a beautifully paired wine and chocolate experience. This guided tour walks you through the chocolate making process, from bean to bar! Taste the cacao every step of the way and finish with a chocolate and beverage tasting that excitingly pairs three truffles with three sustainably-made, small production wines, selected and poured by our local wine partner, WINECULT.

Attendees will enjoy a welcome drink while we give a brief introduction to our bean-to-bar, dark chocolate making process. Ingredients for decorating will abound and inspire, and you'll learn a few tidbits about how we invent flavor combinations for new delicious, sweet products at our chocolate factory. We will fill chocolate bar molds with luscious 75% dark chocolate, and you will get to decorate chocolate bars with local ingredients, like flowers, salt and fruit. While bars are setting up, we will lead a 20-30 minute chocolate tasting experience while you sip on perfectly paired wines to enhance the flavors. We are happy to provide a non-alcoholic tasting experience for anyone in the group who might require that. Your custom chocolate bars will go home with you in beautiful, resealable Twenty-Four Blackbirds pouches. Don't miss out on this delicious experience!

Join us on a beautifully paired wine and chocolate experience. This guided tour walks you through the chocolate making process, from bean to bar! Taste the cacao every step of the way and finish with a chocolate and beverage tasting that excitingly pairs three truffles with three sustainably-made, small production wines, selected and poured by our local wine partner, WINECULT.

Attendees will enjoy a welcome drink while we give a brief introduction to our bean-to-bar, dark chocolate making process. Ingredients for decorating will abound and inspire, and you'll learn a few tidbits about how we invent flavor combinations for new delicious, sweet products at our chocolate factory. We will fill chocolate bar molds with luscious 75% dark chocolate, and you will get to decorate chocolate bars with local ingredients, like flowers, salt and fruit. While bars are setting up, we will lead a 20-30 minute chocolate tasting experience while you sip on perfectly paired wines to enhance the flavors. We are happy to provide a non-alcoholic tasting experience for anyone in the group who might require that. Your custom chocolate bars will go home with you in beautiful, resealable Twenty-Four Blackbirds pouches. Don't miss out on this delicious experience!

Join us on a beautifully paired wine and chocolate experience. This guided tour walks you through the chocolate making process, from bean to bar! Taste the cacao every step of the way and finish with a chocolate and beverage tasting that excitingly pairs three truffles with three sustainably-made, small production wines, selected and poured by our local wine partner, WINECULT.

Attendees will enjoy a welcome drink while we give a brief introduction to our bean-to-bar, dark chocolate making process. Ingredients for decorating will abound and inspire, and you'll learn a few tidbits about how we invent flavor combinations for new delicious, sweet products at our chocolate factory. We will fill chocolate bar molds with luscious 75% dark chocolate, and you will get to decorate chocolate bars with local ingredients, like flowers, salt and fruit. While bars are setting up, we will lead a 20-30 minute chocolate tasting experience while you sip on perfectly paired wines to enhance the flavors. We are happy to provide a non-alcoholic tasting experience for anyone in the group who might require that. Your custom chocolate bars will go home with you in beautiful, resealable Twenty-Four Blackbirds pouches. Don't miss out on this delicious experience!