Celebrating the Important Women in Our Lives
We are delighted and excited to announce that we will be celebrating LESLIE PERSON RYAN as our Honored Mother, and LADY LESLIE RIDLEY-TREE as our Remembered Mother for our 23rd Annual Mother’s Day Luncheon on Friday, May 10, 2024. The luncheon will be held in the Grand Ballroom at the Hilton Santa Barbara Beachfront Resort.
In 1908, 115 years ago, Marian Watts and a group of forward thinking women founded VNA Health with the mission to provide care and compassion to all, regardless of the ability to pay. It is in the spirit of these dynamic women that we celebrate our Honored and Remembered Mothers, who are beloved caregivers and champions for our community’s wellbeing.
As the only certified nonprofit home healthcare and hospice agency in Santa Barbara County committed to a charitable mission, we thank our community supporters. Our charitable community programs and services are dependent upon the generosity of our community, and helps to ensure that VNA Health continues to bring health, comfort, and a quality of life to all Santa Barbara County families, wherever they call home.
Please consider being a sponsor for this inspiring and entertaining event. We look forward to seeing you there!
For more information about supporting the community care programs of VNA Health or to participate as a sponsor for the 2024 Mother’s Day Luncheon, please contact Lailan McGrath at lailan.mcgrath@vna.health or at (805) 690-6218.
Celebrating Mothers & Caregivers
In the spirit of celebrating mothers and the caregivers of our lives, we invite you to honor your special loved ones in our Appreciation Garden with a tribute donation.
Your tribute gift makes a difference, THANK YOU! To make your tribute, please click the button below or go online to vna.health/celebratingmothers.
LESLIE PERSON RYAN
Honored Mother
Problem solver. Civic Leader. Food Hero.
For 40+ years, Leslie Person Ryan has been known in Montecito and Santa Barbara as the go-to person for custom invitations and personalized stationery, originally starting the business to fill the need for a good local stationer. She has a habit of finding solutions to fill a need. As Chair of the Junior League, Leslie started programs like the Teen Safe Ride program, and created the Domestic Violence Emergency Response Team, and more. She saw the need for a food source in Summerland during the tragic mudslides of 2018 when the town was cut off from the rest of the world. Today, Leslie is the CEO and founder of the Santa Barbara Agriculture & Farm Education Foundation (SBAFEF), whose mission is to provide food security, increase awareness and educate how food is grown, propagated and distributed. Her nonprofit started farming as Sweet Wheel Farm & Flowers in Carpinteria, Orcutt, and Summerland, and started donating and delivering healthy food farmed without pesticides and herbicides to SB County citizens in need. SBAFEF works with the schools to create a curriculum for the elementary students, providing educational resources for sustainable agriculture, and educating the public on the benefits of eating fresh foods. Currently they provide food for over 100 food fragile people in Santa Barbara every week. VNA Health connected with Leslie when we had a hospice patient who was a single parent with two boys; 19 and 11 years old. When contacted about this family, Leslie said, “No problem,” and began weekly deliveries to the family, continuing to do so even after the patient passed away. The brothers are able to live together and receive a free healthy food delivery every week. Leslie has also just been awarded the 2024 Food Hero by Santa Barbara Perma-Culture Network. Her greatest awards are her children Ottocina (Otto), Talliesin (Tally), and Margaret (Peg).
LADY LESLIE RIDLEY-TREE
Remembered Mother
Education, Art, & Music Advocate. Flamboyant Red. Philanthropist.
Leslie’s social service work began in New York City’s West Side, where she volunteered and managed the community center for the Episcopal Church of St. Matthew & St. Timothy for seven years. She took in troubled teenaged girls and encouraged them to finish high school, and some of them went on to nursing school. When most people think of retirement at 60 years old, Leslie started Law School and became a paralegal. On her first job she needed to get a signature from a client in Santa Barbara named Paul Ridley-Tree, and, as they say, the rest was history. Leslie and Paul quickly became the most generous philanthropists in Santa Barbara. Leslie, and her signature flaming red hair, would find the causes and Paul would get out his checkbook. They were a formidable pair. Besides Paul, Leslie loved music. She trained in violin and voice, and sang professionally as a torch singer. She served on the Westmont music Council, supported the Music Academy and the Santa Barbara Symphony, and underwrote world-class artists like Yo-Yo Ma to come and perform in Santa Barbara. You cannot talk about Leslie without speaking about her faith, because her belief in something greater than ourselves is what guided her. After her beloved Paul passed, and at 80 years old, Leslie took control of his company with no aviation business experience. She kept the company going and drove herself down to work in Santa Monica three times a week with Clementine and Winston, her Bichon Frise dogs, by her side, and Willy Nelson playing in the background. She felt it was a privilege to give, and worked hard so that she had more money to give out. Especially in her later years, the biggest loves of Leslie’s life were her daughter, Suzette, and her grandchildren, Nahtahna and Xaloc. Suzette is a nurse, and worked in hospice care for VNA Health for 10 years, then moved into serving people at end of life. Her passion to contribute to making the world a better place and help others “do well” continues her mother’s mission of care.
2024 Sponsorship Levels & Benefits
For more information about supporting the community care programs of
VNA Health or to participate as a sponsor for the Mother’s Day Luncheon, please contact Lailan McGrath
at lailan.mcgrath@vna.health or at (805) 690-6218.
DEADLINE FOR PRINTED RECOGNITION: MARCH 11, 2024
Thank You To Our Generous 2024 Mother’s Day Luncheon Sponsors
Presenting
Bui & Herb Simon
Trusted
Christopher J. Toomey, The Newtmont Foundation
Heart
The Angels
Sharon Bradford
Roberta & Stan Fishman
Healing
Louise & David Borgatello
Anna & David Grotenhuis
Jane & Norm Habermann
Frank Ching & Charley Kearns
Val & Bob Montgomery
Sharol & Wayne Siemens
Anne Smith Towbes
Compassion
Ginny & Tim Bliss
Pamela Dillman Haskell
& Chris Haskell
Perry Gibson & Ken Kraus
Diane Meyer Simon
Trudy Smith, Trudy Smith Inc.
Coriander Stasi & Kieran Shah
Kathy Chung Thrash, MD
& Christopher J. Thrash, MD
Katina Zaninovich
Caregiver
Vangie Herrera & Al Anglin
Louise & Tim Casey
Margo Cohen-Feinberg
Victoria Furst Hines & John Buster, MD
Christie & John Glanville
Margo Cohen-Feinberg
Francie & Ken Jewesson
Patty Marshall
Betsey von Summer
Hospitality
Thank You To Our Generous 2024
Mother’s Day Luncheon Sponsors
2024 Mother’s Day Luncheon Host Committee
Anna Grotenhuis
Anne Towbes
Carolyn Williams
Chris Emmons
Diane Pannkuk
Francie Lufkin
Hiroko Benko
Jane Habermann
Jennie Strait
Jodi Fishman Osti
Judith Murphy
Katina Zaninovich
Kimberly Ferrarin
Lailan McGrath
Maggie Mabuchi
Marie Ann Strait
Pamela Dillman Haskell
Phyllis Christensen
Sharol Siemens
Sharon Bradford
Stacie Anthes
Val Montgomery
Victoria Furst Hines
Vince Caballero
History Of Honorees
With love and appreciation for the following women as we continue to remember them each year.
2022 Honored Mother
Rona Barrett
2023 Honored Mother
Dame Olivia Newton-John
2022 Honored Mother
Keiko Dunham
2022 Remembered Mother
Marcella Rinehart Parker
2021
Celebrating all Mothers and Caregivers for the
20th Anniversary of the Mother’s Day Luncheon.
2020 Honored Mother
Sue Birch
2020 Remembered Mother
Adelle Chris Dyer
2019 Honored Mother
Sharol Siemens
2019 Remembered Mother
Rebecca Riskin
2019 Remembered Mother
Marilyn Ramos Benitez
2019 Remembered Mother
Josie Gower
2019 Remembered Mother
Faviola Benitez Calderon
2019 Remembered Mother
Alice Mitchell
2018 Honored Mother
Jelinda DeVorzon
2018 Remembered Mother
Sally Fordyce
2017 Honored Mother
Jane Habermann
2017 Remembered Mother
Leni Fe Bland
2016 Honored Mother
Kate Firestone
2016 Remembered Mother
Debby Davison
2015 Honored Mother
Sally Hall
2015 Remembered Mother
Mercedes Eichholz
2014 Honored Mother
Jill Levinson
2014 Remembered Mother
Barbara Ward Rollerson
2013 Honored Mother
Barbara Ireland
2013 Remembered Mother
Laverne Browning
2012 Honored Mother
Susan Bridges
2012 Remembered Mother
Annie Schipper
2011 Honored Mother
Maryan Schall
2011 Remembered Mother
Connie Toomey
2010 Honored Mother
Regina Venegas
2010 Remembered Mother
No Remembered Mother
2009 Honored Mother
Jorgia Bordofsky
2009 Remembered Mother
Anne MacDougall
2008 Honored Mother
Peggy Borgatello
2008 Remembered Mother
Molly O’Daniel Danielson
2007 Honored Mother
Irma Jurkowitz
2007 Remembered Mother
Georgiana Porter
2006 Honored Mother
Anne Smith Towbes
2006 Remembered Couple
Edna & Harold Zimmer
2005 Honored Mother
Anne Douglas
2005 Remembered Mother
Yetta Rubinstein
2004 Honored Mother
Jane Thomas
2004 Remembered Mother
Patty Whalen
2003 Honored Mother
Lady Leslie Ridley-Tree
2003 Remembered Mother
Jane Crandell
2002 Honored Mother
Dorothy Bacheller
2002 Remembered Mother
Virginia Lee Burton