Morning Lookout: Remembering Gwen Marcum, helping farmworkers in need and crab is coming

Hello hello! It’s Wednesday, Dec. 28, and we should be able to dry out just a bit, with a mix of sun and clouds forecast for Santa Cruz County and temps in the 50s. More rain is on the way, though, so if you need to clean up from the last storm system or prep for more precip, now’s the time.

If you’d rather skip the tour and get right to what’s new on Lookout, here ya go.
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Wallace Baine delivers another chapter in Remembrance 2022, his year-end series looking back at prominent people Santa Cruz County lost in 2022, with the late Gwen Marcum, the well-traveled activist and community-builder behind the Capitola Book Café, the subject.

There’s also another chapter of our Unsung Santa Cruz series, with Hillary Ojeda profiling Ernestina Solorio, who organizes a distribution center out of her Watsonville home to help fellow migrant farmworkers get food and other basic needs.

The Wednesday headlines also include word from Lily Belli on when crab season will finally start, plus the latest local COVID data and more, so onward.

Gwen Marcum and the art of bookselling

A life path that took her from Iowa to West Africa to the halls of Congress to the civil rights-era Deep South to UC Santa Cruz informed Gwen Marcum as she built a community centered around the Capitola Book Café. Marcum died in April at age 86. Wallace Baine has more in a Remembrance 2022 piece.

➤ MORE FROM THE SERIES: Mas Hashimoto’s relentless campaign to remember

From her home, she organizes a food distribution program for fellow migrant farmworkers

(Thomas Sawano / Lookout Santa Cruz )

Ernestina Solorio gives her home and her time to ensure farmworker families receive essential items they urgently need. Hillary Ojeda profiles Solorio in the latest installment of our series.

➤ UNSUNG SANTA CRUZ: Lookout highlights regular folks doing great things

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One more thing before I go: Lookout is working on an ongoing series exploring working life and we’d love your input. How did you get your job? What do you love most about it? What are the biggest challenges? What do students and recent graduates need to know about how to get into your industry? Share your stories and career advice with us — email us at news@lookoutlocal.com and put “career advice” in the subject line.

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Have a most excellent Wednesday!

Will McCahill
Lookout Santa Cruz