Super Bowl Blast!
Want to party with Michael Phelps, James Brolin and Common? Here’s your VIP ticket inside one of Super Bowl 51’s best bashes, the CityBook-sponsored Big Game Big Give blowout!
Feb. 6, 2017
What year was your organization launched? Urban Harvest’s Saturday Farmers Market started in 2004 with just seven vendors, providing an outlet for local farms, community and backyard gardeners to sell fresh produce harvested directly from their soils. Now in its 20th year, the market has grown to be one of the largest markets in Texas, supporting over 100 local farmers, ranchers, and food artisans all from within 180 miles of Houston. The market draws 3,000 customers every Saturday morning and includes many original vendors like Animal Farm, Atkinson Farms, and Wood Duck Farm.
The Urban Harvest’s Farmers Market Program supports real, fresh food and the hardworking people who grow it. The market is more than just a place to shop, it’s a gathering place where friends and families meet up each at Urban Harvest, kids grow up knowing where their food comes from, and new friendships are forged.
What is your mission? The mission of Urban Harvest is to be a catalyst in transforming food accessibility in Greater Houston. Urban Harvest aims to achieve this by fostering strong partnerships with local farmers and gardeners, operating vibrant Farmers Markets, initiating mobile markets, and providing comprehensive garden education.
What is your vision? Their vision is not just to improve, but to transform the way communities engage with and access fresh, locally sourced food. Through these efforts, Urban Harvest aspires to set a national example, showcasing how innovative community collaboration can lead to sustainable change in food systems across the country.
How have you impacted the community?
In 2023 -
• Urban Harvest Farmers Market brought together over 100 local farmers, ranchers, gardeners and food artisans to sell their products directly to Houstonians
• Urban Harvest Farmers Market hosted over 45,000 shoppers
• Urban Harvest matched $25,000 in Double Up Food Bucks, allowing those who use SNAP/EBT to get $1 in fresh fruits and veggies for each $1 spent, up to $40 daily
• Approximately 45% of Urban Harvest vendors identified as social minorities and Urban Harvest continue to strive to grow the Farmers Market diversity. In addition, 50% of shoppers identify as a BIPOC.
Tell us about your big event. Urban Harvest invites Houstonians to break bread during their 30th Anniversary Sunday Supper hosted at St. John’s School on Sunday, November 3rd, 2024. The evening will be a celebration of local food, culinary excellence and the communities Urban Harvest serves. Thirteen of Houston’s most esteemed chefs will lend their unique talents during a multi-course, family-style meal created in partnership with local ranchers and farmers. Proceeds from this unforgettable farm-to-table experience will benefit the programs of Urban Harvest: Farmers Markets, Community Gardens, Youth Education, Food Access, and Gardening Classes.
What are you most proud of? Every year the small but mighty organization serves over 45,000 farmers market patrons and over 100 small food business; nearly 5,000 students and teachers in socially vulnerable Areas; 3,823 community gardeners preserving over 34 acres of greenspace; over 2,000 Mobile Market customers, 78% of which are in underserved neighborhoods; and educates over 900 individuals who participate in year-round organic gardening classes.
BRETT MILLER WAS just 10 years old when his parents took him to a screening of the 1925 silent film, The Phantom of the Opera, starring Lon Chaney as “The Phantom” of the Paris Opera House, with an accompanying soundtrack played live by an organist. The film contains one of the most famous “reveals” on celluloid (We won’t give it away!) and is all the more shocking when accompanied by live music played on the Phantom’s favorite instrument.
Watching Phantom, Miller was “transfixed” at how a single musician and instrument could enhance the film’s spooky atmosphere and draw the audience into a dream-like world of romance, obsession, and dread. “I turned to my parents and said, ‘I wanna do that!’” laughs Miller. “They thought they had a crazy kid on their hands.”
Now 22, living in Rochester, NY, and studying orchestral conducting at the Eastman School of Music, Miller has since mastered the art of accompanying silent films on the organ and performs in theaters across the U.S.
Organist Brett Miller
On Friday, Oct. 25, Miller performs at Jones Hall for an especially spooky Halloween silent film double feature: The 1920, post-World War I German expressionist classic, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari; and Miller’s childhood fave, The Phantom of the Opera. The concert is part of the Houston Symphony’s Halloween Frights at the Symphony series, which includes an interactive screening of The Rocky Horror Picture Show, with special guest Patricia Quinn (Oct. 26); and two screenings (Nov. 16 & 17) of Tim Burton’s stop-motion animation classic The Nightmare Before Christmas, with Danny Elfman’s tuneful score played live by the orchestra.
After that life-changing experience with Phantom, Miller approached his neighborhood church’s music director and simply asked if she would teach him how to play the organ. While similar to the piano in that there is a keyboard, Miller quickly discovered the organ is actually a wind instrument, with knobs or “stops” that when pulled release air to a specific set or “rank” of pipes, which each have their own unique timbre. (One rank of pipes might produce a soft, clarinet-like sound, while another a blast of brass you can feel in your guts.) And then there’s the pedal board, which is played with one’s feet.
“We organists are part octopus,” says Miller, who speaks about music-making with both genuine reverence and good humor. “We’re constantly moving.”
No two organs are identical, so when Miller is booked for a performance, he has to wrap his head, arms and feet around a new instrument. (For Friday’s silent-film double-feature, an electronic organ is being brought in and installed for Miller to play.)
When accompanying a silent film, with the screen in full view and without a click track or any other modern synchronization, Miller plays composed passages and stock cues (with titles like “Chase #4”) in combination with in-the-moment improvisations. For The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, Miller uses a couple of themes from the original full orchestra score for the film composed by Giuseppe Becce. (Fun fact: In the 1913 silent movie The Life and Works of Richard Wagner, one of the first feature-length biopics, Becce played the title role and wrote the accompanying music.) For Phantom, Miller draws from a partial surviving score, preserved by The American Organ Society, along with excerpts from Charles Gounod’s Faust.
For Miller, one of the most exciting things about accompanying silent films is that each performance is unique and caters to the shifting moods of the viewing audience. “You kind of have to manipulate an audience,” says Miller. “But also know what the audience wants from you.”
IN THE SEVENTH annual portfolio, meet luminaries from all walks of life who have helped make Houston — and beyond — a better place. Sponsored by Valobra Master Jewelers
Michelle Barnes photographed at Community Artists’ Collective
Legend Michelle Barnes
As co-founder and executive director of the Community Artists’ Collective, a non-profit committed to empowering African-American artists and facilitating collaboration among diverse communities across Houston, Michelle Barnes is one of the city’s strongest advocates for the fundamental value of art in everyday life. “We are born as creative beings,” says Barnes, a gifted sculptor, who also teaches art to children at community centers. “We should look for opportunities to use that creativity to think and to evolve.” This year, Barnes is receiving some long-overdue recognition for her work: The Collective recently celebrated its 37th year with a Hobby Center gala, and Art League Houston has honored Barnes with its 2024 Lifetime Achievement Award in Arts Leadership.
ShaWanna Renee RIvon photographed at the Alley
Leader ShaWanna Renee Rivon
From period drama to musical comedy, is there a theatrical genre Houston playwright, director and activist ShaWanna Renee Rivon, 46, has yet to master? Rivon’s historically astute work, often set in her hometown of Houston, unpacks the legacies of racism, sexism, and gender disparity while pushing the idioms of Black storytelling into the future. Her work as a community organizer includes August in the Park, an annual day-long celebration of playwright August Wilson at Emancipation Park in Third Ward. Coming up in February, Rivon’s musical Emancipation runs at the Hobby Center; and in development: A play about Houston’s “Wild Man of the Tenor Sax,” Arnett Cobb.
Sylvia Casares, photographed at her Woodway restaurant
Legend Sylvia Casares
Glam and personable, Sylvia Casares undeniably carries herself like royalty. She is Houston’s Enchilada Queen, after all: She makes them, plates them, teaches people how to cook them, wrote a book on them, and this year toasted 25 years of her brand Sylvia’s Enchilada Kitchen, which has restaurants in the Energy Corridor and on Woodway. Most recently, the Brownsville-born food-scientist-turned-chef rolled out jars of salsas and chili-gravies for home cooks. She calls sauces the “heart and soul of Rio Grande cuisine,” and proudly, deliciously imparts that spirit and knowledge on anyone who would like a taste.
Itai Ben Eli, photographed at his new Októ in Montrose
Leader Itai Ben Eli
He’s been on the Houston restaurant scene for less than 10 years. But Itai Ben Eli’s concepts have already cemented their spots in the city’s food-culture aristocracy. Under the umbrella of Sof Hospitality, Doris Metropolitan, Hamsa and Badolina Bakery deliver the rich flavors of Israeli cuisine to Houston foodies and discerning critics alike; Ben Eli was nominated for a 2024 James Beard Award in the Outstanding Restaurateur category. His new Októ in Montrose Collective is a moody, energetic, nightlife-savvy spot with a more broadly Mediterranean menu boasting a Denver cut that melts in your mouth. Outstanding, indeed.
Legend David Leebron
David Leebron expanded Rice University’s facilities (to the tune of $1.8 billion), enrollment (by 85 percent), affordability and research initiatives during his 18-year presidency, from which he resigned in 2022. He engaged with policy makers and community members on a wide range of matters — including during long walks across campus with his wife, Ping — and ushered in an era of innovation with Midtown’s Ion building. Today, Leebron, who’s still a Rice prof, advocates for those values and priorities on a state level, helming the nonpartisan policy org Texas 2036, named for the Lone Star’s bicentennial year.
Renu Khator photographed at The Wortham House in the Museum District
Leader Renu Khator
There’s no denying that the University of Houston has skyrocketed in rankings and reputation during Renu Khator’s tenure, which began in 2008. By 2011, the Indian-born Chancellor had secured UH’s status as a Tier-One research university, and in 2017, plans for the UH Medical School were announced. Graduation rates have dramatically improved, and the campus has undergone a $1 billion transformation — including new football and basketball facilities. Last year, Khator’s hard-fought goal of joining a Power Five conference was realized when UH became a member of the Big 12. What’s next? Khator is determined to break the top-50 public universities list; U.S. News currently ranks UH No. 74.
Bobby Tudor photographed at his home in the Museum District
Legend Bobby Tudor
He’s well known in philanthropy circles; he and his wife Phoebe donate to and chair events for all of the preeminent causes. The accomplished businessman, a former investment banker, is currently CEO of Artemis Energy Partners. But one of his most influential roles these days may come as a surprise to some: As chairman of the Houston Energy Transition Initiative, Bobby Tudor is the voice of the city’s economic future, which depends largely upon its ability to evolve with the transition away from oil and gas. This consortium of energy leaders, with Tudor at the helm, is confident that the city’s continued innovation — in carbon-capture and clean hydrogen technologies, for example — is ushering in global solutions for an “energy-abundant, low carbon future.”
Raz Halili photographed on Galveston Bay
Leader Raz Halili
Growing up on the docks of his family’s fish farms in San Leon, Texas, Raz Halili helped his Albanian immigrant father harvest oysters in the winters and shrimp in the summers, captaining his own boat at age 16. Today, Prestige Oysters is one of the most in-demand seafood wholesalers in the country, and Halili has become a steward of sustainability in the industry. He led Prestige through the arduous three-year process to become the only certified-sustainable fishery in North America, per the Marine Stewardship Council. He uses his James Beard-recognized Pier 6 Seafood & Oyster House restaurant in San Leon to educate patrons about these efforts — recycling shells, enriching reefs — and serves on boards of many Gulf fishing organizations.
Gracie Cavnar, photographed in the garden of her friend Cynthia Petrello’s home
Legend Gracie Cavnar
It’s been 20 years Gracie Cavnar and her husband Bob founded Recipe for Success, the nonprofit that combats childhood obesity and teaches kids about healthy eating through in-school curricula and other programs. She has touched the lives of at least 50,000 kids in Houston and nationwide, with stats showing that students exposed to Recipe’s fun coursework emerge eating 30 percent more veggies. The mission blossomed — literally — a few years back with the opening of Hope Farms, a seven-acre garden of fresh, affordable produce in a food desert near Downtown. If teaching and nourishing kids wasn’t enough, Hope Farms has a dual mission to employ and train military vets in agribusiness.
Franco Valobra photographed at Valobra Master Jewelers on Westheimer
Leader Franco Valobra
It’s an understatement to say that Hurricane Katrina had a silver lining; more like a 24-karat-gold-with-diamonds lining. The storm brought displaced fourth-generation Italian jeweler Franco Valobra from New Orleans to Houston. Since then, he’s not only built a thriving business with posh shops in both cities, but also a reputation for giving back hither and yon. It’s hard to find a gala chair with almost any charity in H-Town — from firemen in search of better equipment to sick kids needing hope and compassion — to whose auction Valobra Master Jewelers hasn’t donated beautiful baubles. Oh, and he also puts the petal to the precious metal! He’s one of the world’s foremost Ferrari enthusiasts.