Lookout wants to hear stories about Santa Cruz County residents helping each other during the storm siege that began New Year’s Eve and lasted into mid-January.
Opinion from Community Voices
Posted inOpinion from Community Voices
A Lookout View: President Biden, please come to Santa Cruz County and visit those who need help the most
Editorial: As the governor and the president visit storm-torn California, where they visit is a meaningful act. Beyond scenic photo ops, it’s a sign of where their attention — and funding — might go. Santa Cruz County deserves a stop — but not just in scenic Capitola.
Posted inOpinion from Community Voices
2023 storms lesson: Santa Cruz County needs a better, more inclusive emergency response plan
Community organizer and former Santa Cruz mayoral candidate Joy Schendledecker sees a glaring problem with our community’s emergency response system. It is inadequate and does not, she writes, “include anyone explicitly representing the unhoused, non-English-speaking, elder or disabled communities.” She challenges our officials to do better, to learn from past mistakes, and to work more collectively and transparently to help those most in need. All of us, she insists, might one day need these services.
Posted inOpinion from Community Voices
I’ve spent years being bullied in school, but now I’ve found hope. I want to bring it to others.
Maddy Rutherford is a ninth grader at Scotts Valley High and says she has been bullied since elementary school. Her experiences filled her with self-doubt and made her not want to go to school. This year, her first in high school, she was selected to be in a new program at Scotts Valley High called Hope Squad, which makes her part of a team of students who help students in need of friendship or someone to talk to. Scotts Valley is the only Santa Cruz County school with this program. She thinks that should change.
Posted inOpinion from Community Voices
Yoga improved my life — now I’d like to make yours better, too
Marisa Messina started practicing yoga as a preteen and now, at 29, has become a certified RYT 200 teacher. She continues to marvel at the mental and physical benefits of yoga and wonders why this healing practice is not available more widely, particularly to those who could benefit most. She aims to change that in Santa Cruz.
Posted inOpinion from Community Voices
How a determined dog and memories of baby red-tailed hawks are getting me through 2023’s stormy start
Lookout columnist Claudia Sternbach was looking for a sign that 2023 would be a tad brighter than 2022. She found it in a determined dog who, just after the New Year’s Eve storm, had slipped down an embankment and was struggling to “return to its people,” who were standing on a ledge calling to it. Sternbach unfolds the story here — and contemplates the unexpected sense of community that emerges during a crisis.
Posted inOpinion from Community Voices
Listen to voices you rarely hear: the mothers who pick your strawberries. They say their kids are paying the price for our bounty.
Lookout spoke to five Watsonville berry pickers, all of them mothers, about the effect working around pesticides has had on them and their kids. It’s part of our continuing series on the issue. Leukemia, asthma, learning disorders, all they believe, were caused by the exposure. Agricultural giants dumped 620,000 pounds of pesticides on Santa Cruz County crops in 2021, some of them near schools in Watsonville. We’ve provided video snippets of our interviews so you can see and hear these mothers and grandmothers talk about themselves and their kids.
Posted inOpinion from Community Voices
Wondering about the value of mentoring? Take a peek at Santa Cruz County’s Big Brother Big Sister pair of the year
Lookout caught up with Santa Cruz County’s Big Brother Big Sister pair of the year at Shadowbrook restaurant just before Christmas. In this video, the two — selected from the county’s 50 pairs of mentors and mentees — showcase their strong bond. They laugh, tease each other and explain why relationships like theirs can change lives.
Posted inOpinion from Community Voices
Guadalupe Bartolo and Maria Valdez interview
Guadalupe Bartolo and Maria Valdez
