Monterey-Based Sanctuary Vacation Rentals Inc. Celebrates its 10th Year in Business, Announces its Four Charity Partners

Sanctuary Vacation Rentals Inc., the premier vacation home rental agency on the Monterey Peninsula, is celebrating its 10th anniversary this year and is inviting the news media to an invitation-only ribbon-cutting ceremony April 5 at Sanctuary’s Monterey office.

Monterey, CA, March 17, 2018 — Sanctuary Vacation Rentals Inc., the premier vacation home rental agency on the Monterey Peninsula, is celebrating its 10th anniversary this year and is inviting the news media to an invitation-only ribbon-cutting ceremony April 5 at Sanctuary’s Monterey office.

The event will be held from 5-7 p.m. Thursday, April 5, with the Monterey Peninsula Chamber of Commerce and Carmel Chamber Commerce, at Sanctuary’s office at 888 Munras Avenue in Monterey.

The ribbon-cutting is invite-only and will kick off Sanctuary’s 10-year anniversary campaign. Sanctuary will also announce its four charity partners, including Animal Friends Rescue Project (AFRP), The Fund for Homeless Women, Dorothy’s Kitchen and The Food Bank for Monterey County.

Animal Friends Rescue Project

From April 5 to December 31, Sanctuary Vacation Rentals will donate $5 per pet-friendly rental up to $2,500 to AFRP. Gracee is a 6-month-old shelter puppy that owners Annee and David adopted from AFRP after she was found wandering the streets of Salinas in pretty bad condition. She was given a tremendous amount of attention, love and care from her foster parent family and their five dogs, so much so that she has no fear of anyone or any dog and wags her tail at everyone she meets. Gracee has been proclaimed the Sanctuary ambassador of goodwill and joy because everyone she touches is left feeling better. animalfriendsrescue.com

The Fund for Homeless Women

Sanctuary will be supporting The Community Foundation for Monterey County’s The Fund for Homeless Women by donating blankets, towels, linens and more on an ongoing basis. The company will work to ensure that Homeless Women are given as many supplies as possible from vacation rentals. The Fund supports programs and services for homeless women on the Monterey Peninsula. In its initial years, the Fund supported both emergency assistance (e.g., temporary motel lodging, transportation expenses, laundry, etc.) and innovative ideas that expanded temporary and permanent housing options and case management services. cfmco.org.

Dorothy’s Place

Sanctuary Vacation Rentals will be supporting Dorothy’s Place by bringing food and supplies from each rental weekly to Dorothy’s Place in Salinas to help feed those in need.

Dorothy’s Place Hospitality Center in Chinatown, run by Franciscan Workers of Junipero Serra, includes Dorothy’s Kitchen, a Drop-In Center, Women Alive! Emergency Shelter for street women in Salinas, and a community of formerly broken and abandoned lives now living together in mutual support in House of Peace transitional living program.

dorothysplace.org

Food Bank for Monterey County

Sanctuary will be donating food throughout the year to the Food Bank for Monterey County and encouraging their guests and clients to donate as well. On December 5, there will be a food drive fundraiser for the Food Bank. Details to come. As the largest and most comprehensive provider of emergency supplemental food and a key proponent of anti-hunger and healthy eating education and advocacy in Monterey County, the Food Bank feeds more than 100,000 residents of Monterey County each year. http://www.foodbankformontereycounty.org.

In addition to the above actions, the entire team at Sanctuary Vacation Rentals will be donating their time and talents to each charity.

Founded in 2008 by Annee Martin, Sanctuary Vacation Rentals boasts a team of 20 professionals and represents almost 100 homes across the Monterey Peninsula, including Carmel-by-the-Sea, Carmel proper, Carmel Highlands, Big Sur, Pebble Beach, Pacific Grove, Monterey, Marina, Seaside, Carmel Valley and the Highway 68 corridor near the airport and Laguna Seca.

Sanctuary’s roster of homes includes everything from cozy two-bedroom cottages in Carmel and Pacific Grove to larger four- to six-bedroom homes that can accommodate up to 12 people and luxurious Pebble Beach homes with ocean views. Many of the homes are within walking distance to the area’s beaches, restaurants, shopping and tourist attractions.

Sanctuary homes all invoke a sense of peace and harmony, allowing guests to relax, revitalize their lives, reconnect with one another, and above all, have fun. Sanctuary’s goal is to provide guests with a sanctuary from all the hustle and bustle of everyday life. Its vision is to inspire and nurture the hearts and souls of guests with the beauty and magic of the Monterey Peninsula while staying in one of its vacation homes.

“What drives me in this business is my love for people and wanting to give them the best experience they can have when they’re here,” says Martin. “We’re all travelers and we’ve all been strangers at one point. I just want people to feel welcome when they come here.”

Sanctuary Vacation Rentals started just after the housing market crash in 2008, which forced Martin and her husband David, an architect, to rent out their own home. Martin was amazed at how many people wanted to come to the Monterey Peninsula. She was soon able to help many of their friends who found themselves in a similar situation.

Before long, she had half a dozen homes, all through word of mouth. She quickly found out she found joy and a creative outlet for her talents in staging and maintaining homes for vacation rentals.

Her goal was to offer a warm and welcoming environment in each Sanctuary rental, with small welcoming touches such as fresh flowers and a bottle of Monterey County wine. All the homes are fully equipped and furnished with everything a visitor may need. In fact, guests need not bring anything with them but their suitcases.

Or as Martin likes to say, “We provide all the amenities and services of a 5-star resort with all the comforts of home.”

Martin says that a lot of Sanctuary’s success is owed to its Florida-based CFO Ben Edwards.

“Ben is one of the most respected leaders and consultants in the industry, president of the VRMA (Vacation Rental Management Association) the past three years,” says Martin. “I really consider him as responsible for my success as my own efforts. He keeps Sanctuary on the leading edge of marketing, technology and keeps us financially solvent. I am so blessed to have him.”

Martin has also become a strong advocate for the vacation rental industry, which has recently come under fire from local communities hoping to curtail the growing practice. She is now one of the leading voices for the vacation home rental industry, something she believes she was “called to do.”

She believes that neighborhoods can be protected with fair and reasonable regulation as opposed to bans and that more good comes from them than bad. She believes that vacation rentals provide affordable options for families that would not otherwise choose to stay in hotels and that they are good for the overall business community. She believes that there are plenty of visitors that want to come and stay on the Monterey Peninsula. It is her hope that hotels, inns and B&Bs can find a way to work together with the vacation rental companies and encourage visitors to visit Monterey as opposed to another city or coastal town.

She loves to network and refer businesses to her guests, and that includes the hotels and inns and B&Bs. Vacation rental homes are not always the best option for guests and many people do prefer the hotel or bed and breakfast experience. She believes being able to meet the needs of the traveler should be the highest priority and we can all work together to provide this.

The bottom line is the satisfaction she derives from making people happy.

“What drives me in this business is my love for people and wanting to give them the best experience they can have when they’re here,” she says. “We’re all travelers and we’ve all been strangers at one point. I just want people to feel welcome when they come here.”

Sanctuary Vacation Rentals

888 Munras Ave., Suite 100

Monterey, CA 93940

Phone: (831) 233-6340

Toll-Free: (800) 614-6706

https://www.sanctuaryvacationrentals.com

Contact:

Marci Bracco Cain

Chatterbox PR

Salinas, CA 93901

(831) 747-7455

https://www.sanctuaryvacationrentals.com

Hyatt Regency Monterey Hotel and Spa Celebrates Earth Day with a Pin-It-To-Win-It Contest

Did you know this year Earth Day is celebrating its 48th anniversary? In 2020 it will be 50 years!

Salinas, CA, March 16, 2018 – Did you know this year Earth Day is celebrating its 48th anniversary? In 2020 it will be 50 years! Each year we learn more about sustainability and Pinterest is an excellent place to share tips from green construction to composting and quotes! Share your favorite pins that represent what Earth Day means to you in our new Pin-It-To-Win-It contest!

Simply:

• Follow us on Pinterest

• Create a board titled: Earth Day 2018

• Pin your favorite Earth Day images, from trends to beautiful photos

(minimum 5 pins)

• Use the hashtag #EarthDayHyattRegencyMonterey on all the pins

• EMAIL a link to your board

• One lucky winner will receive a two-night stay at Hyatt Regency Monterey

• Contest runs March 25th – April 22nd. Winner will be announced April 22nd in

honor of Earth Day!

In honor of Earth Day, Sunday, April 22nd, the Hyatt Regency Hotel and Spa in Monterey is offering the following promotions:

Guests checking in on April 22nd will receive a sprouting pencil that can be planted at home to grow basil! #TravelGreen #InAHyattWorld

Happy Earth Day

Hyatt Regency Monterey Hotel and Spa shows their commitment to the environment and their local communities with programs that ranged from a naturalist-led beach clean-up to shutting the lights off in all unoccupied rooms, and employees turned out to volunteer at dozens of local green efforts. These activities take place throughout the year.

Enjoy this green-inspired cocktail:

“Green Garden”

1.5 oz of Organic Blanco Tequila

½ oz of Cucumber-infused Organic Simple Syrup

¼ oz of freshly squeezed Organic Lime Juice

1 oz of Sparkling Cava

Build and Shake in cocktail shaker. Strain into Martini Glass – Cucumber Garnish

Contact:

Marci Bracco Cain

Chatterbox PR

Salinas, CA 93901

(831) 747-7455

https://monterey.regency.hyatt.com/en/hotel/home.html

Fulham Demonstrates Bluetooth Mesh and PoE Technology for LED Lighting Control at Light+Building

Fulham’s connected lighting controls shows the potential of Bluetooth mesh and Power over Ethernet for intelligent lighting commissioning and management.

FRANKFURT, Germany — At Light+Building this week, Fulham Co., Inc., a leading supplier of lighting components and electronics for commercial and specialty applications, will demonstrate new wireless lighting control technology that uses the Bluetooth mesh control stack from Silvair to provide two-way communication to smart light fixtures. Fulham also will demonstrate new Power over Ethernet (PoE) LED Linear Engine technology combining DC power and smart lighting control. The technology demonstration of lighting controls will be shown in Hall 4.0, Stand A12.

Fulham’s Light+Building Bluetooth mesh demonstration will include a Bluetooth to 0-10V LED controller and a 40W LED driver with add-on Bluetooth connectivity via a Fulham Intelligent Wireless Module. Both products will be used to control third-party sensors and wall switches, showing the promise of Bluetooth Mesh compatibility. These are some of the very first wireless LED controllers to provide two-way Bluetooth communications, enabling control commands and commissioning as well as data gathering for performance monitoring and analytics.

Bluetooth mesh can be used to enable a wireless lighting management ecosystem that can quickly pay for itself, as well as laying the foundation for centralized lighting controls as the foundation for IoT (the Internet of Things). ABI Research predicts there will be 48 billion Internet-enabled devices installed by 2021, including smart luminaires, and open standards such as Bluetooth mesh will make it possible to consolidate these devices into an IoT infrastructure. Fulham is demonstrating a prototype app that shows how sensors in luminaires can be used for additional IoT functions such as managing HVAC, alarm systems, emergency exit signs, and smart door lock controls.

Adopting Bluetooth mesh for wireless lighting controls offers a number of advantages since Bluetooth is a well-defined, open standard that promises fast, reliable performance and scalability. Mesh networking was designed for applications such as building automation, supporting many-to-many communications, and it is ideally suited for connected lighting since it can simultaneously connect sensors in hundreds to thousands of luminaires.

Fulham also will display a new PoE Linear LED Engine technology, which can be integrated into a variety of form-factors . Unlike previous generations of PoE products that can only issue commands via a 0-10v interface, the PoE LED Engine connects directly to the LED light module, providing complete two-way communication with the fixture to gather data about luminaire performance, power consumption, and operating temperature, as well as issuing commands such as on/off, diming, color tuning and timed scheduling.

Using PoE to power LED luminaires simplifies installation, since only one cable is needed for both power and controls. PoE provides the LED luminaries with a low-voltage DC power source providing up to 52W of power. This makes the luminaire more energy efficient and less costly since no conversion drivers are required.

PoE also allows makes it easier to accommodate high bandwidth sensors such as IP cameras in the same network infrastructure used to power and control lighting. With PoE, each LED luminaire has a unique IP address, making it easy to add lighting to an IoT infrastructure, including remote management over the Internet.

“We have been developing clever LED products with integrated programmability for some time. The next step toward smart lighting is to add communications to programmability, and our technology demonstrations at Light+Building will highlight some of the possibilities offered networked lighting ecosystems,” said Russ Sharer, Vice President of Global Marketing and Business Development for Fulham. “In addition to providing two-way communications for both control and data gathering, using open standards such as Bluetooth Mesh and Power over Ethernet to connect luminaires paves the way for IoT integration. LED lighting with built-in sensors creates an ideal framework for IoT infrastructure. These technologies have been requested many times by our OEMs, and we are excited to share their status.”

For more information, visit Fulham at Light+Building 2018 in Hall 4.0, Stand A12, or visit http://www.fulham.com.

#LB18
#BLEmesh4lighting
#BLEmeshecosystem

About Fulham
Fulham Co., Inc. is a leading global provider of intelligent, socially-conscious sustainable commercial lighting components and electronics for use in commercial general lighting, parking structure, signage, horticultural, UV and other applications. The company develops and manufactures a variety of award-winning LED and emergency products, as well as legacy products across multiple lighting platforms. Fulham sells its lighting solutions worldwide through original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and electrical equipment distribution channels. Headquartered in Hawthorne, Calif., the company has sales and/or manufacturing facilities in the Netherlands, China, India and the UAE. For more information, visit http://www.fulham.com. @FulhamUSA and @FulhamEurope.

Media Contact:
Andy Firchau
Marketing Manager
Fulham Co., Inc.
Phone: +1 (323) 779-2980, ext. 1252
afirchau@fulham.com

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