In 1979, a young woman from New Jersey rolled into Carpinteria in a truck with a girlfriend, planning to keep heading north to UC Berkeley. Carpinteria had other plans.
“It immediately felt like home,” Marybeth Carty recalled.
She found a place on the beach, got a convertible, taught preschool, worked multiple jobs, eventually earned her degree at UC Santa Barbara, met her husband — and never left.
Forty-five years later, Carty has become one of the most enduring and trusted figures in Carpinteria’s civic life, and the Santa Barbara Foundation’s decision to name her one of its 83rd Person of the Year honorees reflects the depth and consistency of her service to the community.
Carty received the news with disbelief.
“Are you kidding me? Are you sure?” she asked foundation President Jackie Carrera. “I feel so lucky to be around people who are the true change-makers, people of action and integrity that I look up to and admire, and to think that three of my heroes thought of me as a potential candidate for this award is truly more than I can bear.”
Her instinct to serve began long before California. Carty grew up in a small rural community in New Jersey, the eldest of five children in a close-knit family where service, she said, “was the crystal ethos of my upbringing.”
Her father, a law enforcement officer and mentor to young recruits, was the neighborhood dad who taught children how to ride bikes and swim. Her mother, a nurse, expressed love through caregiving.
“Her love language was acts of service,” Carty said. “I am very much like her in that respect.”
That ethic became a defining feature of Carty’s life in Carpinteria — shaping not only how she serves, but how long she stays. Her commitment to organizations has stretched not for years, but for decades — and in several cases, she helped build them from the ground up.
Thirty years ago, she helped lead the revival of the historic Carpinteria Woman’s Club, founded in 1894, and became the inaugural president of the new club — a role she still holds today.
She also has helped launch or shape initiatives such as Carp Cares for Youth, Hearts of Carp, and mentoring and fundraising efforts that have touched generations of local children and families. She has served on the Santa Barbara County Board of Education since 2013, including two terms as president, and has devoted decades to organizations such as Partners in Education, the Council on Alcoholism & Drug Abuse’s Mentor Program, Hospice of Santa Barbara, the Carpinteria Children’s Project, the Lynda Fairly Carpinteria Arts Center and the Carpinteria Women’s Fund.
The throughline is unmistakable: a deep and sustained investment in education and uplifting women and children.
“I love being in community, empowered by collective energy and action, and a shared agenda to make things better,” she said. “It kinda just lights me up.”
Since 2018, she has served as executive director of the Natalie Orfalea Foundation, guiding initiatives that support children and families across Santa Barbara County.
“I think of philanthropy as love and kindness in action,” she said.
Among Carty’s greatest influences, she said, was her late father-in-law, Dr. Bill Carty, the longest-serving superintendent in Carpinteria’s history.
“He wanted no recognition at all,” she said. “He’s a really important reminder that these are the things you do — small acts that hopefully get multiplied by lots of people and then have the power to transform the world.”
Asked what she has drawn from a lifetime of giving, Carty quoted her family’s motto: “You can make things better,” she said simply. “That’s the choice.”
In Carpinteria — and well beyond — Carty has been making that choice for a very long time.
Carty will be honored alongside Dorothy Largay at the Santa Barbara Foundation’s 83rd Person of the Year Awards luncheon, which recognizes extraordinary volunteers who have made a significant impact in the Santa Barbara area. The event will be held April 29 at the Hilton Santa Barbara Beachfront Resort.
