Environmental Coalition of Miami & the Beaches (ECOMB) one of Miami-Dade County’s leading non-profits promoting sustainability is pleased to announce that Commissioners Jerry Libbin and Michael Gongora have been selected by their Board of Trustees to receive ECOMB’s 2011 Emerald City Awards.
The Award will be given at the GreenRaiser, ECOMB’s annual fundraiser, at the Sagamore Hotel on Thursday, April 21, 2011. A VIP reception, with organic cocktails, green drinks and live Brazilian music by Rose Max & Ramatis, will take place from 6:30 to 8 pm, and the main event from 8 to 10 pm. The Award ceremony will take place at 9 pm.
The GreenRaiser will bring a variety of people, products, and practices of sustainability to life in an exciting evening of music, art, ecofashion, green drinks and more. This event aims to create awareness for Miami and Miami Beach’s environmental issues, as well as serve as the organization’s main fundraiser to enable initiatives to protect and preserve the local community’s ecosystem and appearance.
The Emerald City Award, instituted in 2009 by ECOMB’s Board of Trustees, honors our community’s key “green” environmental leaders, friends and visionaries as well as top contributors and promoters of sustainability.
Libbin will be recognized for his tireless and on-going efforts to protect and preserve one of Miami Beach’s most precious environmental and economical resources: our beaches. According to Luiz Rodriguez ECOMB Executive Director, Libbin has taken this issue very close to his heart and spearheaded a variety of initiatives and awareness campaigns to keep our beaches free of litter, such as: seeking stricter enforcement of the City of Miami Beach’s existing littering laws; launching the “Keep Our Beaches Clean! Poster Contest”; organizing the “No Litter No Butts Campaign”; coordinating a variety of beach cleanup projects and, most recently, the launch of the “Adopt a Beach” program. But he has not stopped there: he has also been an essential supporter of other local green initiatives, such as recommending and voting for a complete energy audit of our City’s major buildings, thus reducing our community’s carbon footprint and saving the City of Miami Beach millions of dollars. Libbin has demonstrated creative and productive leadership in his efforts to conserve Miami Beach’s ecosystems.
Gongora is being recognized for his vision of a greener and more sustainable Miami Beach by spearheading the creation of the City of Miami Beach’s Sustainability Committee in 2007. At a time when the word “sustainability” was used almost exclusively by activists in “green” circles, Gongora took the time to learn about existing environmental initiatives and get involved with many ECOMB programs and projects. Gongora took his commitment to sustainability a step further by proposing to the City Commission that the time had come for our City to move towards a greener future. By working very closely with the Commission and various City departments, Gongora, as chair of the Sustainability Committee, discussed, proposed and assisted in the implementation of numerous projects that have placed Miami Beach on the sustainability map. Since its inception, the Committee has recommended the development of the City of Miami Beach Sustainability Master Plan, implemented a single-stream recycling program, established the bicycle sharing project, created a green building ordinance, and many others.
Past recipients include former Mayor of Miami Manny Diaz, former City of Miami Beach Commissioner Saul Gross, City of Miami Beach Community Resource and Outreach Team Manager Lynn Bernstein, as well as members of the staff of the City of Miami Beach Public Works Department.
ECOMB invites all interested members of the community to join them at the Annual GreenRaiser on April 21, 2011 at the Sagamore Hotel, 1671 Collins Avenue, 33139 Miami Beach.
For more information please visit www.ecomb.org.
