Programs

​Sonoma County Forum offers an exciting array of speakers including leaders in business, education, health care, the arts, and local government. Our speakers provide an excellent way to gain knowledge of the community and learn about its vast resources. Meetings are held on the 1st and 3rd Thursdays of each month at 8am at the Epicenter, off of Piner Road, west of Coffey Lane in Santa Rosa.

Scroll below for information about upcoming 2025 speakers.
For biographies of past speakers, by year, click here.

Upcoming Speakers

December 4, 2025

College Graduates Who Change the World: How 10,000 Degrees Supports Sonoma County Students

Katrin Ciaffa

​10,000 Degrees®  mission is to achieve educational equity by supporting students from low-income backgrounds to and through college to positively impact their communities and the world. As a leading California college success nonprofit, they reach more than 12,000 students annually across eight Bay Area counties with comprehensive wraparound support, including financial aid counseling, near-peer college and career coaching, and scholarships. 100% of students come from low-income backgrounds, 93% are Black, Latinx, Indigenous, People of Color, and 92 % will be the first in their family to attend college. Katrin Ciaffa joined 10,000 Degrees in April 2020 as Regional Director for Sonoma and Napa County. ​She has over twenty-five years of experience in the North Bay non-profit sector. Prior to joining 10,000 Degrees, she held leadership roles with Buckelew Programs, a regional behavioral health non-profit

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2025 Program Schedule

	Speaker
Jan. 2	Kelly Lister, Educational Services Consultant with CORE​ Equity and Science of Reading​​
Jan. 16	John Guariglia, Santa Rosa Police Department, "Avoiding Frauds and Scams"
Feb. 6	Book Exchange (members only)
Feb. 20	Allison Goodwin, CEO, Redwood Empire Food Bank
March 6	Kevin Marx and Callie Charleton, Engineers Without Borders
March 20	Kent Porter, Pulitzer Prize Winning Photographer
April 3	Sasha Ponomareva Sonoma County Water Agency
April 17	Karen Wise, Executive Director of the Museum of Sonoma County
May 1	Alan Butler, The Petaluma River- A Sketch Journal and Brief Historical Overview
May 15	League of Women Voters: Future of the Electoral College
June 5	Dr. Anish Shaw, Compassionate Solutions for Mental Health Care
June 19	David Laurice, Bird Rescue
July 3	Merith Weisman, Go Local
July 17	Drew Rose, Positive Images
August 7	Inga Aksamit, author of Between Worlds: An Expat's Quest for Belonging
August 21	Alethea Larsen, The Living Room
Sept. 4	Nicole Tai, GreenLynx
Sept. 18	Angela Del Grande, Head Teacher, Plumfield Academy
Oct. 2	Darren Lashelle, NorCal Public Media
Oct. 16	Kathleen Mott, Genetic Testing for Cancer
Nov. 6	Gary Greenough, Pacific Coast Air Museum
Nov. 20	Noel Barnhurst, Food Stylist and Photographyer
Dec. 4	Katrin Ciara, 10,000 Degrees
Dec. 18	Holiday Party (members only)