Rosanne Holliday

“Del Mar’s really small. When you live in Del Mar, it’s a full-time job.” 

– From Del Mar Times interview (bit.ly/RosanneH)

Rosanne’s quip captures a core truth about “the Del Mar way” of community activism, and her own example is formidable. She is a former president of DMF and Board member of DMCC; founding member, Del Mar Garden Club; past president of Del Mar Community Alliance (the publisher of the Sandpiper); and President of the Holliday Family Foundation, which made a leadership gift for Shores Park acquisition.

She was an activist in the 1970s-era efforts to preserve Crest Canyon as open space, and in the 1982-83 campaign for voter approval of Powerhouse acquisition. In 2008, she worked to support Crest Rim Park improvements and in 2014 spearheaded the Crest Rim Adopt-a-Spot program; she initiated a grass-roots campaign in 2013 to stop gun shows at the Del Mar Fairgrounds; and much more.

Long an advocate of early childhood development and reproductive health, she is a professor emerita at Southwestern College – where, in the 1970s, her fight to bring her baby on-campus earned her both a suspension and an article in the New York Times, “Teacher Fights to Breast-Feed on Campus.” Rosanne is a former Board Chair of Planned Parenthood of the Pacific Southwest, and has served on the Scripps College Board of Trustees. 

As Rosanne said in her interview, “This is what you do. You work to make things better. It’s just what people do.”