With his best-selling book Last Child in the Woods, Richard Louv sparked a national debate that spawned an international movement to reconnect kids and nature. He coined the term Nature-Deficit Disorder™; influenced national policy; and helped inspire campaigns in over eighty cities, states, and provinces throughout North America.
Louv will be the keynote speaker of San Francisco Botanical Garden’s 15th Annual Garden Feast, a fundraising luncheon in support of the Garden’s youth education program, serving 10,000 Bay Area children annually, most from San Francisco public schools and many from the city’s most underserved neighborhoods.
Garden Feast guests will enjoy a delicious sit-down lunch catered by McCalls on the lovely Great Meadow within the Garden, surrounded by 55 acres of beautiful gardens displaying over 8,000 different kinds of plants from around the world. Guests will also savor a 2011 organic Sauvignon Blanc provided by wine sponsor Bonterra and have a chance to bid on unusual and exotic plants, botanical art, unique experience packages, parties in the Garden, and more in the silent and live auctions.
The highlight of Garden Feast will be the opportunity to hear inspirational keynote speaker Richard Louv. Louv is a journalist and author of eight books about the connections between family, nature and community. His newest book, The Nature Principle: Human Restoration and the End of Nature-Deficit Disorder (Algonquin), offers a new vision of the future, in which our lives are as immersed in nature as they are in technology. Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children From Nature-Deficit Disorder (Algonquin) has been translated into 10 languages and published in 15 countries. Louv is also the founding chairman of the Children & Nature Network, an organization helping to build the movement to connect today's children and future generations to the natural world.



