. We have no influence politicallyI swear to you, she told me. join us with a tax-deductible donation today. Lost Hills Elementary School, the program's second-leading recipient, has taken in $141,000. [61], At the same time as exporting almonds to Asia and other locations, they import Fiji bottled water from the South Pacific. $563,715 in corn, soybean, wheat, oat, sorghum and other farm subsidies from 1996 to 2006. The clinics have a full-time, bilingual doctor, health coaches, and prescription medicationsall free of charge. Inexpensive, too! [49] In 2006 Resnick introduced the Wonderful Giving Program, allowing employees to direct donations to local charities. DAVIS, Calif., Oct. 13, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- The University of California, Davis, today announced that philanthropists Lynda and Stewart Resnick, co-owners of The Wonderful Company, have pledged . Millions lose access to drinking waterOur water doesnt have to be at risk! On todays schedule: a morning fitness class, an after-school computer lab, and a movie night. [36] She is a trustee emeritus of the Philadelphia Museum of Art. By the time she was 24, shed launched her own advertising agency, Lynda Limited, given birth to three children, and gotten divorced. Not so fast. We are deeply committed to doing our part to build a better world and inspiring others to do the same., But skeptics note that the Resnicks donations to Lost Hills began a few months after Earth Island Journal documented the yawning wealth gap between the couple and their company town, a dusty assemblage of trailer homes, dirt roads, and crumbling infrastructure. By signing up, you agree to our privacy policy and terms of use, and to receive messages from Mother Jones and our partners. Responding to prodding from Stewart Resnick, Feinstein sent a letter to the secretaries of the interior and commerce urging their agencies to reexamine the science behind the Delta environmental protection plan. By 2000, Tijerina and her husband had scraped together enough money to qualify for a USDA loan that helped them buy 330 acres of wheat fields a few miles outside town. Stewart and Lynda Resnick are the owners of Fiji Water, Teleflora, and POM Wonderful. The Kern Water Bank gave them the ability to store this water and sell it back to the state at a premium in times of drought. On a perfect sunny morning, the Fellows of FRG visited the spectacular Sunset Boulevard estate of the innovative and philanthropic couple, Lynda and Stuart Resnick. Alternate parking is available on campus. The NASCAR Hall of Fame driver and team owner got a taste of the NHRA last year when he raced a Top Alcohol dragster and finished second in what was to be a one-off appearance. If they truly cared about a sustainable California and farmworkers within their own community, then how things are structured and how they are done by the Wonderful Company would be much different., Lynda Resnicks friends, on the other hand, say she has found her calling. UC Davis is set to build a center focused on agricultural innovation and research after Beverly Hills billionaires Lynda and Stewart Resnick gave the university $50 . It is building a $25 million campus for a college prep academy in Delano and expanding its agriculture-focused vocational program to six public schools. Beverly Hills billionaire Stewart Resnick and his wife, Lynda, the co-owners of The Wonderful Company, are the Power Couple of Corporate Agribusiness in California, who have become virtual royalty . She won a Gold Effie Award for her idea to pair fresh flowers with a collectible keepsake container,[13] while her Mother's Day special on NBC resulted in another Effie win. The companys new, far-reaching health initiative also includes free exercise classes in the employee gym, a weekly on-site farmers market, and a program that pays people up to $2,700 a year to lose weight and keep it off. Along the way, Paramount acquired 100 acres of pomegranate orchards. All Rights Reserved. After the fall harvest comes winter pruning, spring pest management, and summer watering and mowing. Can you pitch in a few bucks to help fund Mother Jones' investigative journalism? But the powerful San Joaquin Valley farming couple also makes sure they give thousands to Valley Republicans. Club House, Main Pool & Gym with Terrace, Mini-Golf Course, Sky Gym, Indoor Pool & Jacuzzi at Rooftop, Mini-Golf Course. They claim the Resnicks influence among politicians and liberal celebrities is quietly warping Californias water policies away from the interests of the states residents, wildlife, and even most farmers. The Resnicks met while he was president of American Protection Industries, Los Angeles, California, and she was pitching her ad agency to get his business. [15], The Resnicks purchased the Franklin Mint in 1984;[11] Lynda began directing the company's international marketing efforts, a position she held until 2000. In the summer of 2014, their employees quietly began conducting polling and focus groups to figure out the best way to sell Browns plan. Stewart capitalized on his wifes marketing prowess. The mailing address and office address of Stewart Resnick is given here. U.S. News has extensive information in each . [17] Also during her tenure, licensing was arranged for products related to the Louvre art museum in Paris, the Vatican,[18] board games like Monopoly and Scrabble, classic cars, and famous people like John Wayne, Elvis Presley, and Marilyn Monroe. David Corn, Noah Lanard, and Dan Friedman. She had just been confronted while watering her lawn in Santa Monica by one of the amateur videographers behind last summers hottest new California film genre: the drought-shaming video. . "[54], Growing water-intensive nut tree crops (a single almond requires 1.1 US gallons [4.2L] of water[55]) in the Central Valley drew criticism during the 201117 California drought. The fan mail address is not available with us right now. YL & RW: Stewart and Lynda Resnick are donors and supporters of of some of the most powerful and influential neoconservative organizations in America, including the AIPAC spinoff WINEP (Washington . But it has done so at the cost of pushing the West Coasts largest estuary to the brink of collapse; last year the drought finally prompted regulators to eliminate most Central Valley water deliveries. She's been married four times. It wasnt all that long ago that Chase Briscoe was couch surfing and looking for work in racing. Lynda Resnick is to branding what Warren Buffett is to investing, Gloria Steinem wrote in 2009, in one of dozens of celebrity blurbs for Rubies in the Orchard. Tax filings from 2008 show that Stewart Resnick and his wife Lynda are on the board of trustees of the highly influential Washington Institute for Near East Policy think tank, which was created as . And now that people have to cut back on their water, all of a sudden it has become important.. And now that people have to cut back on their water, all of a sudden it has become important.. Stewart & Lynda Resnick's House in Beverly Hills, CA - Virtual Globetrotting Virtual Globetrotting Her father, Jack Harris, was in show business . Her father, Jack H. Harris, worked as a film distributor during the 1950s; he is known for producing The Blob, which later became a cult favorite. Links: www.forbes.com. Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox. I did one naughty thing, she told me. In the plants nut-grading room, a few dozen seasonal employees wearing orange reflective vests and hairnets sat around folding tables evaluating samples from incoming truckloads of pistachios. But as the money poured in, the Resnicks began to notice that their land and the people working it weren't . We're a nonprofit (so it's tax-deductible), and reader support makes up about two-thirds of our budget. All Rights Reserved. Adam Keats, senior attorney at the Center for Food Safety, describes the transfer of the water bank to the Resnicks and other farmers as an unconstitutional rip-off.. A similar return-on-investment logic infuses the companys educational initiatives. We drove to the Wonderful pistachio factory for lunch. But the Resnicks water rights, by and large, are not senior. Paramount is owned by West L.A.'s Roll Global, a $3 billion agribusiness conglomerate headed by Stewart and Lynda Resnick. The Wonderful Company is a privately held, Los Angeles-based global enterprise that produces a diverse range of high-quality, healthy products, including such iconic brands as Wonderful Pistachios, Wonderful Halos, Wonderful Seedless Lemons, POM Wonderful, FIJI . This month's featured Vanguard is Lynda Resnick, The Wonderful Company. Rafaela Tijerina first met la seora at a school in the town of Lost Hills, deep in the farm country of Californias Central Valley. The Resnicks are behind the Wonderful brand of snacks, which markets . Required fields are marked *. But is their philanthropy just a marketing ploy, or a sincere effort to reform Californias lowest-wage industry? If these plans come to pass, [the tunnels] are a complete existential threat to our communities, our people, and to the environment., But the Resnicks have never been ones to let details get in the way of a good marketing campaign. But tree crops are different. Discover exemplary care for brain and mind. According to her memoir, she acquired a pistachio orchard that also contained some Wonderful variety pomegranate trees in California's San Joaquin Valley. Stewart and Lynda Resnick are the biggest farmers in the United States. Resnick's Sunset House Tour. [14] January 2009 saw her company's first Super Bowl advertisement, which was voted one of the best Super Bowl ads by several newspapers, blogs, and online fan sites. Having shrewdly maneuvered the backroom politics of Californias byzantine water rules, they are now thought to consume more of the states water than any other family, farm, or company. [45], Resnick and The Wonderful Company have made significant improvements to the communities that dot California's Central Valley since 2010, especially in the city of Lost Hills, where half of the homes have at least one family member working at The Wonderful Company. Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights. Here are seven things your probably didn't know about her. Their first big purchase as a couple, in 1979, was Teleflora, a flower delivery company that Lynda revitalized by pioneering the flowers in a gift conceptblooms wilt, but the cut-glass vase and teddy bear live on. By 1996, their agricultural company, Paramount Farms, had become the worlds largest producer and packager of pistachios and almonds, with sales of about $1.5 billion; it now owns 130,000 acres of farmland and grosses $4.8 billion. The states laws were designed to settle the frontier, and under the first in time, first in right rule, the most senior water claims are the last to be restricted in times of drought. Visit the UCLA Health Stewart & Lynda Resnick Neuropsychiatric Hospital, Los Angeles for your specialty care needs. They purchased 2,500 acres of orange trees in Californias Kern County citrus belt. The couple were the subject of ridicule in the national press. The Resnicks also have chipped in another $250,000 to support Browns pet ballot measure to fund education. Nobody cared. Beverly Hills billionaires Stewart and Lynda Resnick, owners of agribusiness giant Paramount Farms Inc., FIJI Water, Justin Winery, and other high-profile business entities, bought the Hardham . He is a lawyer. The chef in the employee cafeteria made us adobo-chicken lettuce wrapspart of a healthy menu intended to combat diabetes and obesity. Its interests span citrus, almond and pistachio farms and processing facilities . More than half of the towns residents are under the age of 23, a quarter live below the poverty line, and only 1 in 4 adults has a high school degree. On a swelteringly hot day, three Wonderful executives took me on a six-hour tour of nearly everything that the company is doing to improve the lives of the hundreds of employees who reside there. A highly original documentary project reveals how a couple of Beverly Hills billionaires "are willing to risk war in Iran and the Middle East all in order to boost and protect their lucrative pistachio business." By Max Blumenthal Three years ago, journalist Yasha Levine and filmmaker Rowan Wernham first arrived at the vast pistachio plantation of Stewart and Lynda Resnick in . To meet robust demand from Europe and Asia, Stewart Resnick last year announced that he wanted to expand nut acreage another 40 percent by 2020. Such an incredible stockpiling of the states most precious natural resource might have attracted more criticism were it not for the Resnicks progressive bona fides. [9] Resnick was designated an un-indicted co-conspirator for her role and pursued by prosecutors for two years. The YouTube clip shows her being taunted repeatedly before turning to douse the camera-wielding scold with her hose. The Resnicks are people who, in Arax's words, "control more land and water 130 billion gallons a year than any other man and woman in California and still believe it isn't enough.". It was only later that Tijerina realized the woman owned the almond groves where Tijerinas husband worked as a pruner. [35] Lynda Resnick described the brand as "created specifically for millennial women and older Gen Z'ers and the milestones they are celebrating in their blossoming and exhilarating lives. 1981 The Resnicks acquire Paramount Citrus Association. These last four years with this drought, nobody was looking until it affected them. Brown held a press conference in which he rebranded his plan as the California Water Fix. In 2016, the . Subscribe today and get a full year of Mother Jones for just $14.95. To my friend with the sweet voice, she wrote inside Tijerinas copy. The Resnicks acquired the Fiji Water business in 2004,[25] after which Lynda supervised marketing that focused on promoting the uniqueness and exotic nature of the water. Led by Noemi Donoso, the former chief executive of Chicagos public school system, Wonderful Education last year spent $9.3 million, including at least $2 million on teacher grants and college scholarships in the Central Valley; it pays up to $6,000 a year toward college tuition for children of its employees. The work is extraordinary, and rooted in a genuine desire to make a difference in peoples lives, says media mogul Arianna Huffington. Stewart and Lynda Resnick have hobnobbed with such Southern California fixtures as Barbra Streisand, and they're prominent among local philanthropists, with their name on a sizable chunk of the . All told, they claim to own Americas second-largest produce company, worth an estimated $4.2 billion. [33], In 2019, the Resnicks launched a female-focused luxury wine brand, JNSQ (named for the French phrase "je ne sais quoi"). Your email address will not be published. Now, in a throwback to the sort of massive public-works projects built during his fathers governorship, Brown envisions a bold, silver-bullet solution to the states water crisis. At first, it was classic civic gifts: $15 million to found UCLAs Stewart and Lynda Resnick Neuropsychiatric Hospital; $35 million to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art for an exhibition space designed by Renzo Piano and dubbed the Resnick Pavilion; $20 million for the Resnick Sustainability Institute at Caltech, which focuses on making the breakthroughs that will change the balance of the worlds sustainability. (Wonderful claims to have developed an almond tree that has 30 percent higher yields than a conventional tree, using the same amount of water.
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