Will.i.am of the Black Eyed Peas, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and Kids at Day of Service L.A. 2009. 

Photo by Paige Donner.  

Originally published on Greening Hollywood and featured on the Huffington Post Green Pages. 

Read More on The Green Blog Network, links can be found Here and Here.

Mark Sanchez, USC quarterback star of '09 Rose Bowl, now NFL, poses with Paige Donner of
Eco Consulting * Eco Media on Mayor's Day of Service, L.A.
  

Follow Paige Donner on Twitter: www.twitter.com/greeninghollywd

Greening Hollywood: Westside Story And Eastside Luv  [published also on Global Green Website]

HUFFINGTON POST. JUNE 1, 2009

From the West Side to the East Side this past week was one gala dinner after another. Every single night, from the West Side to the East Side of L.A., and everywhere in between, there were people recognizing one another for their accomplishments. Or, as Father Greg Boyle, founder of Homeboy Industries and recipient of the Friends of Boyle Heights Genesis Award put it, people were "recognizing each other as accomplices in their accomplishments."

It was sort of a citywide festival of "You're great." "No, YOU'RE great."

On Thursday evening Heal The Bay hosted their "Bring Back The Beach" annual benefit dinner for 1,000 guests - and raised over half a million dollars to support ongoing education, advocacy and community outreach. It was held at the Santa Monica Airport Barker Hangar and featured a mid-dinner performance by Cirque du Soleil. Watching the steel-cut muscle bound men perform their superhuman feats of balance and strength lent me, and the other women sitting at my table, an appetite for dessert. Cirque announced their partnership with Heal The Bay that evening.

The Boyle Heights Technology Youth Center honored Father Greg Boyle, founder of Homeboy Industries, Taboo of the Black Eyed Peas and Congresswoman Roybal-Allard, the first Mexican-American woman elected to Congress. She shared that she is, "Very very excited about [Sotomayor's] appointment. We're all working very hard to make sure she gets the support that she needs. Never before have we had anyone more qualified to sit on the Supreme Court."

When I caught up with Arianna Huffington at the Global Green Millennium Awards Gala on Saturday night, she echoed this enthusiasm for Sotomayor's nomination. You can read her fired up "Rock on Love" blog about it here...