Quick Take
The Pajaro Valley Collaborative — a group of 23 nonprofits in south Santa Cruz County — is launching a series of educational public forums to inform the community about federal funding cuts and possible local impacts. The group’s first news conference will be held on Tuesday at 11 a.m. at the Watsonville city plaza.
A group of nonprofit organizations in the Pajaro Valley are rallying together to launch a series of educational forums to inform community members about the possible local impacts of federal funding cuts.
The Pajaro Valley Collaborative — a group of 23 nonprofits based in South County — will be holding its first news conference on Tuesday morning at the Watsonville city plaza, starting at 11 a.m. Conferences will be held biweekly and, in partnership with Lookout, will be livestreamed on Facebook.
The biweekly conferences will cover different topics, such as immigration, health care and education.
“We’re being bombarded with information everyday, sometimes by the hour,” said MaríaElena De La Garza, Community Action Board CEO and member of the collaborative. “We want to build a foundation of communication so that our community understands what … those impacts are going to be locally.”
The collaborative has three areas of focus: health and wellness, economic mobility and civic engagement, said De La Garza. She and other nonprofit leaders know that people will be facing issues regarding accessibility to food, health care and housing, and want the community to get involved with volunteering or donating money, she said.
The collaborative does not want to scare or overwhelm people with information, but rather aims to break down important information in a way that is tangible, said Angela Di Novella, executive director of Catholic Charities Diocese of Monterey.
“It is tough information that we have to share, but information is power,” said Di Novella. “We want our communities to be informed so they can make decisions accordingly, an educated decision.”
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