As the clock ticks toward the blockbuster Kiddo! Gala on March 23, time's also running out on the bidding on the organization's companion Online Auction, which only happens every other year and is laden with all sorts of great items.

They include: 

• Golden State Warriors courtside tickets
• Mill Valley Film Festival tickets to the closing film and after-party
• BottleRock tickets
• Exclusive oil paintings, water colors and prints
• Vacation homes
• Kids' camps
• Wine packages
• Jewelry
• Salon packages

 
Click here for a full list of items, to which new items and lower prices are being added. There's also a fixed-price category, which includes great teacher parties for students, kids' experiences, and parent-only wine and whisky parties.

Reminder: Kiddo, the Mill Valley Schools Community Foundation, raises more than $3 million per year through the aforementioned events, private donations and its Business Partner Program, all to support programs and teachers in the arts, elementary physical education, classroom and library aides, technology and innovative teaching grants from transitional kindergarten through 8th grade in the Mill Valley School District.

The 411: The Kiddo! Online Auction ends Saturday, March 23 at 6:40pm. MORE INFO & SHOP.
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The good news just keeps on coming for the Mill Valley Public Library.

On the heels of last month's announcement of a unique public-private partnership between the City of Mill Valley and the Mill Valley Library Foundation, under which the city released $350,000 – nearly half of a $661,419 donation in 2016 from the Zimmer Family Living Trust – to MVLF, the nonprofit foundation's board says it has reached a capital base sufficient to initiate an endowment. 

"Our foundation has historically funded library programs through yearly donor support of our annual campaigns and event fundraisers such as the foundation’s Storybook Ball and Beyond The Book Bash," said Andrew Shapiro, the board's president. "Prior to the creation of this endowment, funding amounts have been varied and unpredictable. The goal of this endowment is to perpetually and dependably support the library's free, award-winning programming."

Shapiro says the board determined that a starting endowment balance of $2.3 million was needed to perpetually provide consistent grant amounts to the library at levels approaching some of the foundation’s most successful fundraising years.

​"A successful reprise of our Storybook Ball this past year and a record-setting 2018 annual campaign that yielded over $100,000 raised our endowment account to near $2 million," Shapiro says. "Our unique partnership with the city enabled our foundation to cross-over and adopt its endowment spending policy roughly two years ahead of our projections. This is a noteworthy milestone in the foundation's 36-year history."

As a result, the endowment begins distributing annual program grants to the library with an initial grant of approximately $65,000 this July. 

Foundation officials says they plan to continue building the endowment targeting the next interim goal of $4 million, allowing an increase of the perpetual annual payout to more than $100,000 per year "to help sustain–and even grow–an extraordinary array of award-winning programs that tax-based city funding does not provide for, including After Hours, teen and children's programs, a technology lab and instruction."

To celebrate the occasion and to continue to grow the endowment, the foundation is reprising its “Beyond The Book Bash” fundraiser on September 7 at the Throckmorton Theatre. The foundation also plans to begin a Legacy Giving program this year so it can directly accept and manage estate and planned gifts. 

MORE INFO ON THE MILL VALLEY LIBRARY FOUNDATION.
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It's been four years since the New York Times chronicled the surge in popularity of the Mill Valley Little League, sparked by the San Francisco Giants' trio of World Series championships. Although the Giants appear to have an uphill climb to return to that heyday, MVLL is thriving, if the 66th Mill Valley Little League and Opening Day was any indication.

Games began last week for the "Rookie League," a tee-ball/coach-pitch league for kindergarteners, and are ramping up across all levels. Play ball! MORE INFO.

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The folks at the Community Church of Mill Valley have decided that now, possibly more than ever, is a great time to sing along to songs about equality and justice.

To that end, they're hosting A Woody Guthrie Sing-Along, a celebration of the legendary singer/songwriter/commentator Woody Guthrie, whose legacy continues in American life today, even though he died 51 years ago. His songs, from “This Land is Your Land” to his “Dust Bowl Ballads,” still inspire many. The free event is set for Sunday, March 31 (4-5:30pm) at the church at 8 Olive Street.

Robin Flower and Libby McLaren, two of the Bay Area’s most well-known folk musicians, will lead the group in song. The pair have been singing together for 31 years and have recorded seven albums together, in addition to their work on solo releases. In 2018, they hosted several hundred folks at the Freight and Salvage in Berkeley for the first “Woody Guthrie Sing-Along” – and now we all get a chance to join in.

Bring your singing voice to Community Church of Mill Valley and prepared to be inspired by an old-fashioned group sing-along and to hear some of Woody’s words about this country and the kind of land it could be.

The 411: The Community Church of Mill Valley hosts A Woody Guthrie Sing-Along, a celebration of the legendary singer/songwriter/commentator Woody Guthrie, on Sunday, March 31 (4-5:30pm) at the church at 8 Olive Street. Free. Donations appreciated. Refreshments will be served. MORE INFO.

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From banks and retailers to restaurants and art galleries, dozens of local businesses and organizations have signed an anti-litter Merchant Pledge from Clean Mill Valley, the local organization focused on “creating public awareness about litter and its impact on our community and the environment.”

The campaign, which seeks to help rid litter from the streets and waterways within the greater Mill Valley area, asks Mill Valley business owners to pledge to help make Mill Valley's environments litter free by taking simple steps such as assigning employees to pick up litter around their business and properly dispose of and sort the litter; to contract with Mill Valley Refuse to provide garbage service for the business, per the City of Mill Valley’s Municipal Code; and to educate employees about the proper disposal and sorting of garbage. 

Merchants who participate in the program receive a Clean Mill Valley window sticker as well as recognition on both the Clean Mill Valley and Mill Valley Chamber websites.

"If you are already a Clean Mill Valley (CMV) participant, we thank you for sweeping in front of your business, recycling and training your employees to do the same," co-founder Joan Murray says. "If you are not a member and you want your business to sport the proud CMV decal and join the community to keep our town clean, contact Joan@cleanmv.org and I’ll deliver a merchant package. And if you need a new CMV decal, we’re happy to bring one by."

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In the midst of the ongoing #MeToo movement and in the wake of the Brett Kavanaugh Supreme Court confirmation hearings, the Mill Valley Library is hosting an After Hours event for adults and high school students featuring New York Times best-selling author Brendan Kiely for a discussion on Friday, March 22 at 7pm.

Through discussion of personal experiences, research, and his novel Tradition, Kiely examines issues of consent, privilege, and toxic masculinity as well as their long lasting consequences in the wake of #MeToo and Kavanaugh. Kiely is the author of All American Boys (with Jason Reynolds), Tradition, The Last True Love Story, and The Gospel of Winter. His work has been published in more than 10 languages, he received a Coretta Scott King Honor Award, and the Walter Dean Myers Award.

The After Hours wil be the first in a series of #MeToo-related events the Library plans to host this year and beyond.

The 411: The Mill Valley Library is hosting an After Hours event for adults and high school students featuring New York Times best-selling author Brendan Kiely for a discussion on consent and #MeToo on Friday, March 22 at 7pm. Adults and high school students only. Wine reception at 6:30pm for registered guests. Registration recommended. Register here.

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Have you seen that glowing orb in the daytime sky this week? It's the sun! Mill Valley Lumber Yard is celebrating the arrival of spring and some sunshine by throwing a Spring Sidewalk Sale on March 23-24 (10am-5pm) throughout the historic property at 129 Miller Avenue.

Here are the specials: 

• Victoria Mimiaga Gallery and Studio – 20% off select paintings, in studio refreshments, private and group lesson packages.
• Ambatalia – Molly de Vries is hosting a good old fashioned, BYOTC Tea Party (Bring Your Own Tea Cup), in front of her store. She will offer casual education on bringing reusable cups when out and about while getting coffee and tea.
• Aviator Nation – In-store discount of 10% off + refreshments.
• Flour Craft – Buy 1, Get 1 50% off on granola + a special limited edition Spring Waffle for that weekend + various samples. 
• Bloomingayles – Crystals, succulent planters, vintage French containers & objet d’arts on sale + rosé & sparkling water 
• Makers Market  – $10 off purchase of $50 or more + mimosas & wine
• FarmHouseUrban – 20% off of select tabletop, accessories, pillows and furniture + vintage and one-of-a-kind pieces will be available during sidewalk sale only
• The Edit – 50% off select denim, $20 scarf bin + an extra 30% off sale items.

The 411: Mill Valley Lumber Yard throws a Spring Sidewalk Sale on March 23-24 (10am-5pm) throughout the historic property at 129 Miller Avenue. MORE INFO.

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Join the Mill Valley City Council and City staff for a Community Meeting on wildfire prevention and preparedness, and to hear your thoughts on proposed changes to improve our community's ability to withstand a wildfire. Discussion topics include:

• Recent fire prevention and preparedness activities.
• The proposed Vegetation Management Ordinance, which would require eliminating most vegetation within 3 feet of homes.
• Evacuation Plans.
• Emergency Communications.

Bring the kids! The City is offering complimentary childcare during the program.

The 411: City of Mill Valley hosts a Community Meeting on wildfire prevention and preparedness on Monday, March 25, 6:30-8:30pm. Mill Valley Community Center, 180 Camino Alto.  MORE INFO.

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​On April 7, 2018, Heather Hardcastle and Rick Perko opened the second location of their gluten-free Flour Craft Bakery, choosing to do so at the Mill Valley Lumber Yard at 129 Miller Avenue.

In doing so, the couple joined the steady rise of a historic property that already included Molly de Vries' Ambatalia and Gayle Nicoletti’s Bloomingayles, and has since added Serena Armstrong’s FarmHouseUrban, Suzy Ekman’s Makers Market, Amy Lowery’s The Edit and Paige Mycoskie's Aviator Nation, with Chelsea Hutchinson’s BOL and Watershed Restaurant from Ged Robertson and Kyle Swain on the way.

Hardcastle and Perko say they are ready to celebrate that one-year anniversary on Saturday, April 6 (1am-2pm) with a "Spring Faire with fun for the whole family. Stop by to celebrate and enjoy live music, activities for kids and adults, and of course plenty of cake!"

"It's our way of saying thank you to the Mill Valley community for their amazing support over the past year,," Hardcastle added.

The foundation of Flour Craft is personal. In 2000, Hardcastle responded to a gluten intolerance diagnosis by making a radical career change, entering the pastry program at the Culinary Institute of America in St. Helena and learning how to cook all of the pastries and dishes she loved gluten-free from scratch. The Mill Valley location has allowed the couple to build on the success of their San Anselmo location, which opened in 2013.

Matt and Jan Mathews family purchased the historic landmark property in 2012 from the Cerri family, which had owned and maintained it as a lumber yard and True Value hardware store for the previous 14 years. The property was built by lumber magnate Robert Dollar in 1892 as Dollar Lumber Company.

In July 2016, the City Council approved their proposal to redevelop the iconic property into a multi-use space has grown into a community gathering space with a wide range of businesses, as well as artists studios. 

The 411: Flour Craft Bakery celebrates its one-year anniversary on Saturday, April 6 (1am-2pm) with a Spring Faire with live music, activities for kids and adults, and plenty of cake! at 129 Miller Ave. 
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Floyd and Julia Albee quietly opened their Prevalent Projects home decor shop at 61 Throckmorton Ave., half of the long-empty space that was vacated by the Tyler Florence Shop in 2014, in late 2018. The owners of the building split the former Florence space in half, allowing a pair of businesses to open in one of the most prominent and recognizable buildings in town. 

Now that recognition is spreading beyond the 94941.

In a laudatory piece in the San Francisco Chronicle, Deborah Bishop writes, "A little bit hygge, a little bit rock ‘n’ roll, the shop’s mix of goods is a visual tonic," noting that "a backstory clings to every light fixture, couch and scented candle, all chosen based on looks, provenance and environmental bona fides."

Bishop describes the Albee family's journey from traffic-laden Los Angeles to Mill Valley, which came on the heels of Floyd Albee's work on a Subaru commercial that has him atop Mount Tam at sunrise. “It was so beautiful, I had tears in my eyes every morning. And Mill Valley — who knew places like this still existed?"

READ THE FULL STORY HERE.

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Lighthouse Bar & Grill, Strawberry's waterfront restaurant and bar at the Club at Harbor Point, is teaming up with user reviews and recommendations site Yelp for what sounds like an extremely fun way to raise money for a good cause.

Set for Monday, April 1 at Lighthouse Bar & Grill, "​Marin's Best Cocktail Competition" features some of Marin's top bartenders competing to create an original cocktail made with Tres Agaves Tequila. Bartenders from Mill Valley's Piazza D'Angelo and Playa, along with Copita, Farmshop, Flores and Guesthouse are set to participate.

The event also boasts celebrity judges, including Marin IJ Barfly columnist Jeff Burkhart, KGO Radio sportscaster Rich Walcoff and Tres Agaves Tequila owner Barry Augus. But the best part, organizers say, is that attendees themselves will also be judges. Attendees will be given a bottle cap to cast their vote. The cocktail that receives the most bottle caps at the end of the night wins! Your $20 donation gets you: tastes of all the cocktails, complimentary taco bar, live music courtesy of James Harman, a raffle ticket, and other treats.

Proceeds from the event benefit Marin's Best, a non-profit that supports sports & social activities for the developmentally disabled.

The 411: Lighthouse Bar & Grill and Yelp team up for "​Marin's Best Cocktail Competition" on Monday, April 1 at Lighthouse. 6-8pm. $20. MORE INFO.

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Just weeks before Christmas in 1947, then-five-year-old Josephine Bolling found out that her father, Elmore Bolling, just 39 and the father of seven, had been lynched. Elmore Bolling had been a leader in the black community of Lowndes County, Alabama, establishing himself as a man who volunteered to serve the less fortunate and worked hard to build a small trucking business.

Decades later, Josephine Bolling McCall has turned that horrific experience, coupled with years of research, including interviews with relatives and elderly Lowndes County residents, into a new book. With The Penalty for Success, Bolling McCall tells the story of the murder of a black man in 1940s Alabama, presenting convincing evidence that he was lynched, despite the fact that he was not hanged, mutilated, or burned before a crowd of people – but shot six times with a pistol and once in the back with a shotgun.

Bolling McCall is set to appear at the Outdoor Art Club on Thursday, April 4 to discuss the book and her father's fight against rampant discrimination in the Jim Crow South to build several successful businesses, making him wealthier than many of his white neighbors, a likely cause for the hatred that ultimately led to his murder.

Elmore Bolling is one of the thousands of African-Americans honored in the new lynching memorial (the National Memorial for Peace and Justice), which opened in Montgomery, Ala., in April 2018. The memorial was erected with donations by the Alabama-based Equal Justice Initiative.

Bolling seeks to challenge audiences to reconsider lynching as a means by which whites eliminated competition from black business owners as part of a pattern of racist violence that terrorized African Americans for generations.

The 411: Author Josephine Bolling McCall brings her book The Penalty for Success to the Outdoor Art Club on Thursday, April 4 at 1pm. One West Blithedale. Free. Light refreshments will be served.

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The king of the dinner roll is getting into the restaurant and sports bar business.

Jonny Moseley, the longtime Tiburon resident who became a global skiing superstar in the years leading up to and following the 1998 Winter Olympics, is teaming up with Mill Valley's Karen Goldberg, owner of Tamalpie on Miller Ave. and in Corte Madera, on a new sports bar concept in the Tamalpie Corte Madera space called Moseley's Sports & Spirits.

​"I am teaming up with Jonny Moseley and taking the best of Tamalpie and turning it into Moseley's," Goldberg says. "It will be a sports viewing mecca. We have installed 11 flat screens and we'll feature the best of Tamalpie food and of course a huge bar that is open until midnight on weekends."

"A post-yoga and Bay Club brunch is coming soon, with bottomless mimosas and wake-and-shake, adult spiked espresso drinks,' Goldberg adds. "We will also have Tamalpie favorites but expect a whole new bar, happy hour, and fun and games adult programming, a beer garden, shuffle board, video games and more. We'll have a full bar program and Jonny will be there, shaking up drinks and hosting events."

It's a new chapter for both Tamalpie Corte Madera and Moseley, who burst onto the skiing scene in 1995 at just 19 years old, winning his first World Cup combined competition and achieving his goal of becoming World Cup freestyle champion and picking up his first moguls World Cup win in Lake Placid a year later.

Many years later, Moseley entered his post-competitive skiing phase, settling down and marrying his fellow Branson School grad Malia and earning his degree from UC-Berkeley. He then embarked on a media career, including narration and appearances for Warren Miller Entertainment, the purveyor of arguably the finest action sports films around, as well as serving as an American Ninja Warrior analyst on NBC, a talk show host on FS1 and an Olympic and World Cup Freestyle skiing analyst for NBC.

Moseley's also serves as a new phase for Goldberg, who opened Tamalpie at 477 Miller Ave. in January 2012 and followed that up with Mexican restaurant Playa, which she sold prior to its opening to longtime local residents and restaurateurs Bill and Vanessa Higgins and Peter Schumacher. In May 2018, Goldberg opened Tamalpie Corte Madera in the 4,000-square-foot former Brick & Bottle space.

The 411: Moseley's Sports & Spirits opens at 55 Tamal Vista in Corte Madera on April 22. MORE INFO.

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Two weeks after playwright Ayad Akhtar, who won the 2013 Pulitzer Prize for Disgraced, returned the Marin Theatre Company with a "passionate and probing play" called The Who & The What, the critics are weighing in about the production. 

San Francisco Chronicle Theater Critic Lily Janiak writes that the play allows the traditional values of conservative Muslim paterfamilias Afzal (Alfredo Huereca), "including everything that secular liberals might find objectionable about them, to come from not hate but love. In a more just world, that empathetic portrayal wouldn’t feel fresh. But in 2019, that freshness — and Huereca’s superb rendering of it — is what elevates the show above boilerplate family drama."

Marin Independent Journal theater critic Sam Hurwitt wrote, "Alfredo Huereca is appealingly outgoing and maddeningly overbearing as Zarina’s amusingly blunt and meddling father, who lives for his daughters but espouses deeply reactionary views on the roles of women and men.

With The Who & the What, Akhtar, whose Invisible Hand at MTC in 2016 drew rave reviews for weaving a financial lesson into the story of an American investment banker Nick Bright being kidnapped and held for ransom by a militant Islamist group in Pakistan, follows brilliant Pakistani-American writer Zarina who is committed to finishing her debut novel about women and Islam, but discouraged by months of writer’s block.

Her father, Afzal, tries to help the only way he knows how: by setting her up with a nice Muslim man. When Zarina meets Eli, a white convert who runs a local mosque, she finds balance: someone who both supports her work and pleases her father. Tensions erupt when Afzal and Zarina’s sister, Mahwish, read her finished manuscript. The implications of Zarina’s controversial claims about who the Prophet was, and what he has become, drive a wedge between the family members and force them all to confront the beliefs that define them.

MTC says the play, directed by Hana S. Sharif, is a "thrillingly fierce and heartfelt piece about identity, religion and the contradictions that make us who we are. Searingly fresh and fast-paced, The Who & The What celebrates the courage it takes to be yourself—even in the face of family and faith."

Here's a trailer for The Who & The What: 

And here's playwright Ayad Akhtar explaining the who and the what of The Who & The What:

The 411: Playwright Ayad Akhtar's The Who & The What runs at the Marin Theatre Company through with March 24. 397 Miller Ave. Tix $25-$70. MORE INFO.

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Growing up in a largely middle-class section of Brooklyn, N.Y. in the 1960s and 70s, Bob Minkin was mesmerized, from some 3,000 miles away, by the explosion of music then coming from the Bay Area. Decades later, Minkin is widely regarded as one of the Bay Area’s preeminent music photographers, serving as the house photographer at the Sweetwater Music Hall and, in 2018, releasing his “The Music Never Stopped,” a book entirely focused on Marin County’s music scene.

That tome was chock full of Minkin's photos of the unrelenting live music at Bob Weir’s Sweetwater, Phil Lesh’s Terrapin Crossroads in San Rafael and many other local venues. Now Minkin is preparing to dive into another thread of his deep well of photos with a book that explores the legendary career of Grateful Dead frontman Jerry Garcia, who died in 1995.

Minkin launched a Kickstarter campaign to support Just Jerry, "a one-of-a-kind coffee table book that includes not only my iconic photos of Jerry Garcia from 1977 to 1995, but also never-before-seen images of the man we love," Minkin says of the books, which will be large format (9.5" x 11.5") and feature more than 150 color and black & white images, many displayed full page or larger.

"I pored through every single photograph of Jerry I ever took to find the most special shots to include in this collection," Minkin adds. "The indelible images capture the essence of Jerry, including peak moments from concerts at venues such as Red Rocks, Winterland, Radio City Music Hall, Capitol Theater, Shoreline, Madison Square Garden, Oakland, even Europe, and so many more."

Check out the Kickstarter video below for more info:

The 411: Rock photographer Bob Minkin launched a Kickstarter campaign to support Just Jerry, a coffee table book of photos of Jerry Garcia from 1977 to 1995. MORE INFO.

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