Come on Down to the Levee!

SierraScape August - September 2008
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by Jan Niehaus
Contributing Member
building photo courtesy of Timothy Montgomery, TMA Architects LLC

Jean Kittrell and the Old St. Louis Levee Band
Jean Kittrell and the Old St. Louis Levee Band will be providing entertainment at the Harvest Celebration.

You are going to have so much fun at the Sierra Club Harvest Celebration 2008. Mark the date: Saturday, September 6.

The Harvest Celebration will be great fun because …

  • We're meeting on the levee of the mighty Mississippi River.
  • And we'll have fabulous food—fresh, locally harvested, nutritious, and delicious—during happy hour and on the dinner buffet.
  • We're bringing St. Louis' best Dixieland band back to the riverfront: Jean Kittrell and the Old St. Louis Levee Band.
  • Our venue is the second "greenest" building in the entire St. Louis region: The William A. Kerr Foundation Headquarters at 21 O'Fallon, just north of the Arch.
  • And we're gathering great auction items that you'll definitely want to take home with you.
  • Finally, all your friends will be there, celebrating the harvest with you.

This is one fund-raising dinner you won't want to miss!

This is Definitely Not Your Typical Pot Luck

You're probably familiar with the Sierra Club's pot luck dinners. Well, the Sierra Club Harvest Celebration 2008 is a radically different kind of dinner.

But the Sierra Club pot luck dinners are wonderful!

Agreed. They're tremendous fun with great food and excellent company. One is not better than the other. They're just strikingly different. Read on.

#1: Everyone Is Invited

It's different, first of all, because we're inviting the public at large—on the radio, in newspapers, on the Internet, and through handbills at music stores and cafes. So, in addition to members of the Eastern Missouri Group, we expect to see a lot of new faces. Spread the word! Come one, come all!

#2: Support for the Best Cause Ever: the Earth

Secondly, the Harvest Celebration is different from the usual pot luck dinner because we're charging admission: $60.

You might argue that even pot luck dinners charge an admission fee: the dish you bring. True. But the medium is different—cash versus food—as is the scale: $60 compared to the cost of ingredients and the value of your time.

So, admission is $60. You may be frugal, like many wise Sierrans, but you still support the Sierra Club and other organizations dedicated to protecting and celebrating our environment. And we'll let you in on a little secret: Since Fair Saint Louis priced us out of that gig and the St. Louis County Fair and Air Show shut down, EMG's annual revenue is down $20,000.

We really need to energize our nature-loving community, and a fund-raising dinner with happy hour, live music, and an auction in a very cool building on the levee seemed like the perfect solution. If you think about it: $60 ain't a bad price for all that! We hope you'll come to the party, but if you can't, we hope you'll still support the event with your monetary contribution.

#3: Seasonal, Savory St. Louis Mediterranean Cuisine

The third difference between a typical Sierra Club pot luck and the Harvest Celebration is this: meal planning. At one pot luck, you might get 12 vegetable dishes and no fruit. At another, you'll get 10 desserts and only 2 vegetables.

But we have fantastic food at Sierra Club pot luck dinners.

Yep, some of the best. Both types of meals are wonderful – just different.

The Harvest Celebration menu, featuring Mediterranean cuisine, is carefully designed and orchestrated by our own Jim Young, leader of the Lemonade Brigade and champion fund-raiser year after year. He has painstakingly selected each dish and recipe to complement the flavors, colors, textures, and nutritional values of every other dish. And, as you know if you've ever enjoyed one of Jim's dinner parties, you won't find an amateur chef and meal planner who is more passionate or knows more than Jim about food and feeding a large, hungry, discerning crowd.

We are, indeed, a discerning group. You'll be pleased to find that the Harvest Celebration will likely outshine many of the area's better-known benefit dinners. We will have no mundane iceberg lettuce, no bleached and dried-up chicken, no limp asparagus. Jim has crafted a world-class Mediterranean menu featuring locally grown, top-quality, peak-of-the-season ingredients in inspired recipes that he hand-picked himself.

Did we mention that the lemonade is free? It's our way of saying "Thank you" to all our lemonade loyalists. The soft drinks, tea, and coffee are complimentary, too. We'll also have beer, wine, and our famous margaritas and hurricanes. Bring your appetite!

#4: Legendary Dixieland Musicians

Fourth. Do you remember the delightful Dixieland band that used to entertain standing-room-only crowds on the Lt. Robert E. Lee? We're bringing them back: jazz diva Jean Kittrell and her Old St. Louis Levee Band. Since leaving the riverboat in 1990, Jean and her five-man band have traveled the world, touring Europe and Japan, cruising the Caribbean and Mediterranean seas, and wowing fans at jazz festivals across the nation. You're in for a real treat! Jean herself said, "It will be fun to bring my Old St. Louis Levee Band back to the St. Louis riverfront for some happy Dixieland music."

You'll find more information about Jean Kittrell and the Old St. Louis Levee Band on her website (www.jeankittrell.com) and in the July-September 2008 Missouri Sierran. Listen for announcements on local radio jazz programs.

The William A. Kerr Foundation headquarters building
The William A. Kerr Foundation headquarters building, platinum LEED-certified, will host the Sierra Club Harvest Celebration 2008 on Saturday, September 6.

#5 The "Greenest" Building in St. Louis

Wait, there's more. Number five. You've no doubt heard about buildings being "LEED certified." Well, we are dining – and dancing, too, if you like – inside one of only two platinum-level LEED certified buildings in all of St. Louis, second only to the Alberici corporate headquarters. It's a humble building, not pretentious, which we Sierrans like. And the setting is raw urban, north of the Arch, east of Lumière Place—an area ripe with development potential. Someday you'll be able to say, "I was there when ..." 21 O'Fallon, as the Kerr building is called, though unremarkable in appearance, is a marvel of energy-efficiency and a love song to the environment.

You can tour the facility for free, all the way up to the green roof, with the professionals who know the building best: Foundation Trustee John Sweet, principal architect Tim Montgomery, and landscape architect Mary Deweese. The June-July 2008 SierraScape contains a longer article about 21 O'Fallon.

#6: Select Auction Shopping

Last but not least—number six—you can browse the wide array of auction goodies, both tangible and not, and stake your claim to the items that you simply can't live without—meals, for example. Items that make excellent gifts, to yourself perhaps—stuff like original art. Items from your favorite local merchants. Items that, through your purchase, will bring much-needed funds to the EMG, so we can continue to educate the public, advocate for responsible resource management, and revel in the natural treasures available to us in Eastern Missouri.

Make Your Reservations Now!

Our capacity for the dinner is set at 200—max, tops, the limit—and the deadline for reservations is August 27. So, you need to sign up soon. Do it now. We're operating on a first come, first served basis.

You can buy tickets online at missouri.sierraclub.org/emg/frontpage2008/harvest_celebration_2008.htm.

Or you can mail your check, payable to Sierra Club, to

Sierra Club Harvest Celebration 2008
7164 Manchester Avenue
Maplewood, MO 63143

Make your reservations by August 27. This is one party you won't want to miss!

The Place to Be

You'll have it all at the Harvest Celebration: the Riverfront, a scrumptious Mediterranean dinner, Dixieland at its best, the "greenest" building in St. Louis, a worthy auction, an evening with friends and family, and, best of all, an opportunity to support the important work of the Sierra Club Missouri Chapter - Eastern Missouri Group.

There's no better place to be on Saturday night, September 6, than the Sierra Club Harvest Celebration 2008. See you there!