Unsung Santa Cruz: Restaurant workers share stories from the back-of-house and thrive in a difficult industry
Post-pandemic, the restaurant industry is more challenging than ever, but within it are stories of hardworking employees that keep these businesses open despite the odds. Here, we celebrate two back-of-house workers doing just that.
Unsung Santa Cruz: With a name like Strongheart, showing other vulnerable youth how to thrive comes naturally
It’s been a decade since Ooli Strongheart, then 15, found a safe haven for transition-age youth (TAY) that helped fill in many of the missing gaps from a childhood devoid of love and support, filled with trauma and fear. Soon to be a UC Santa Cruz graduate, the former foster and homeless youth is passionate…
Unsung Santa Cruz: Climate activist Pauline Seales bridges generational divides on environmental issues
A retired teacher, Pauline Seales has worked behind the scenes on some of the county’s most high-profile environmental campaigns. But beyond political issues, Seales works with youth to restore fragile natural habitats and raise awareness about the changing climate.
Unsung Santa Cruz: Pajaro Valley High School seniors bring local, organic salads to their school
Pajaro Valley Unified School District board members are considering whether to pursue a bond measure on the November…
Unsung Santa Cruz: Beyond trans and reproductive health care, Jen Hastings works to foster understanding
Having worked for years in transgender health care and advocacy, reproductive health care and opioid awareness, Jen Hastings has built up an impressive, decades-spanning résumé. While that important work continues, Hastings is considering a shift back to clinical care as access to reproductive care faces attacks across the country.
Unsung Santa Cruz: From her home, she organizes a food distribution program for fellow migrant farmworkers
Ernestina Solorio gives her home and her time to ensure farmworker families receive essential items they urgently need.
Unsung Santa Cruz: Tonje Switzer’s ‘condoned activism’ helps others through long-term CZU recovery
Bonny Doon resident Tonje Switzer has turned the experience of her home burning down in the CZU fire into a way to help others through post-fire recovery. “Her story,” says one person who knows it, “is one of a clear-eyed motivation to succeed in values-driven work, leaving a trail of people better off, and community…
Unsung Santa Cruz: Cissi Van Wickler and Judy Locke help differently abled youth reach independence
After working in local schools for years, Cissi Van Wickler and Judy Locke grew tired of seeing differently-abled students leave school without direction and proper support. Together, they have built the CALI Project, a nonprofit organization devoted to helping differently abled young adults learn the skills and achieve the confidence necessary to reach the highest…
Unsung Santa Cruz: Her classroom and sex education curriculum help students feel safe and included
As an English and health teacher at Delta Charter High School, Jamie Cutter has her hands full. Students and other education leaders say she’s made a difference in Santa Cruz County by helping youth develop healthy and critical decision-making skills in and outside the classroom.
Unsung Santa Cruz: Andy Carman matches restless locals with volunteer opportunities in defense of the planet
Where the enormity of the challenges facing the planet drags some into defeatism, it had the opposite effect on Andy Carman, galvanizing the Santa Cruz psychotherapist into action. “Andy, quit whining about what’s needed and what’s missing,” he told himself, and Environteers soon followed.
Unsung Santa Cruz: As the navigator in chief, he’s helping steer county’s most vulnerable into housing
John Dietz is not your average 85-year-old riding out his golden years. He and his team at the downtown Santa Cruz library work diligently to help house folks who might otherwise be deemed off-limits by landlords. They help find important paperwork, fill out forms and prepare for housing interviews. Once those clients are in, the…
Unsung Santa Cruz: Singing for those passing into the great beyond has become Marti Mariette’s calling
The mission of the Threshold Choir is not only to bring solace to the loved one, but to his or her family as well, to restore a sense of the sacred to the experience of dying. The organization discourages the terms “performance” or “rehearsal,” because they want their singing to transcend the performer-audience dynamic.
Unsung Santa Cruz: Bringing smiles to the faces of isolated, vulnerable seniors has done the same for him
Kris MacKellar has done all kinds of jobs in his lifetime, but none more fulfilling than driving his aging Ford pickup around the hills of Santa Cruz County during the pandemic, bringing food and kindness to seniors and people with disabilities.
Unsung Santa Cruz: ‘They needed a community,’ and she was the one to keep them together
Through the pandemic and the CZU fire, yoga studio owner Juko Holiday prioritized her clients through the community and safe space she cultivated at Ease Mountain Yoga in Ben Lomond. Holiday lost her two tiny homes in the blaze but continued to offer free meditation classes over Zoom from a hotel lobby to help heal…
Unsung Santa Cruz: How he became a go-to resource for Santa Cruz’s unhoused population at Vets Hall
Hector Borjas had “zero experience” with the homeless population when he began as a supervisor at the Santa Cruz Veterans Hall in August 2020. Yet over the course of a year at the emergency shelter, the 30-year-old UCSC graduate found commonalities with the residents from his own childhood, and was able to connect with residents…
Unsung Santa Cruz: Her call to duty is stronger than most, but she is also only human
No one could prepare volunteer fire captain Renee Fenker for what it would be like defending the San Lorenzo Valley area she grew up in — or being unable to defend her family’s longtime house from the CZU fire flames: “We need to remember that a lot of our community is still healing.”
Unsung Santa Cruz: Lifelong Watsonville resident — ‘Mr. Volunteer’ — won’t let retirement get in the way
Born and raised in South County, Matt Ryan spent more than 30 years as a firefighter and picked up other roles along the way, from helping power the local Toys for Tots program to community barbecues and giving fellow first responders a willing ear.
Unsung Santa Cruz: An advocate and listener for young adults in the foster youth system
As a program manager for a residential treatment program, April Pao provides support to case managers and the young adults they serve. The young adults have aged out of the foster care system but still seek guidance on how to live independently.
Unsung Santa Cruz: When his next emergency disaster became COVID, he immediately thought vaccine
Dominican Hospital’s Paul Angelo was instrumental in making vaccine care and outreach a top priority in Santa Cruz County. He helped organize the distribution of vaccines in South County first and has continued on from there.
Unsung Santa Cruz: She helps take care of the farmworkers who help put food on our tables
Jackie Vasquez has become an active advocate for taking care of farmworkers. Her work at GoodFarms involved everything from providing food and school supplies to families in need to bringing health services and vaccination clinics right to the fields.
Unsung Santa Cruz: How helping people in the San Lorenzo Valley has also brought her ‘home’
Linda Meyer could’ve easily looked elsewhere after her marriage broke up or after her 19-year-old son was tragically killed. But the Valley Churches United leader has discovered the support she has given the valley has been returned in kind.
Unsung Santa Cruz: Love, loss & grieving … the story of a beloved bus driver who ‘vanished’ as COVID emerged
Domingo Tovar was the second person in Santa Cruz County to die of COVID-19. As the two-year mark nears of his unexpected passing in April 2020, his family and friends still grapple with how loss unfolded at the beginning of a little-understood pandemic.
Unsung Santa Cruz: Why one woman’s outside-the-box idea could be a fitness game-changer
Natalia Rivera-España didn’t intend to start a business, but she spotted a big need during the pandemic and knew she’d regret it if she didn’t act. The result: GOAT Santa Cruz and signs of an outside workout phenomenon.
In time for the holidays, we offer up stories on little-known folks who make this a better place to live
We asked for nominations and there was no shortage. In fact, we got twice as many deserving candidates as we could use for our inaugural Unsung Santa Cruz series, which we hope will become a regular, all-year-long staple.