May 2020

The Santa Cruz Hub for Sustainable Living is a constellation of community-based projects that has been building and celebrating community and offering crucial resources since 1994. We are currently closed for community safety, and rather than have each individual project at the Hub shoulder the burden for rent alone, we are focused on a collective effort to raise rent/expenses all together, and we’re asking you to help us with that! https://charity.gofundme.com/o/en/campaign/rent-for-the-hub-for-sustainable-living

Projects like The Fábrica, SubRosa, The Bike Church, PedX Courier & Cargo, Hard Core Compost Company, Tenant Sanctuary, and Sanctuary Santa Cruz all call the Hub home, with offerings spanning from community and legal support for immigrants, to work trade in exchange for a bike for low income riders, to compost pickup at your door every week. Projects of the Hub also offer a vibrant environment for events, classes, meetings, organizing, performance, art, studying, and so much more (read more about our project offerings here http://www.santacruzhub.org/projects-of-the-hub.html ).

Due to the Covid-19 crisis, Hub on-the-ground operations are completely shut down for the safety of the community. Many of the Hub’s projects are currently or will soon be struggling to pay the bills, particularly those projects which rely upon small cash donations from public-engaging programs. We are fundraising to account for rent/expenses at this unpredictable time.

As we come to realize it is very difficult to predict how long we are likely to be closed, we have determined that our need is greater than expected – and so the fundraiser reflects that

In addition to this crowdfunding campaign, please let us know if you have ideas of grant funding or if you would be willing to become a sustaining member of the Hub for as little as $5/month.

Our lease is up in October, and we are starting to have the conversation with the landlord to renew. So, depending on how that goes, we may begin a larger fundraising campaign later this year if we have to move to either rent or purchase a new property to continue offering these crucial resources to the Santa Cruz community. We appreciate any community involvement in supporting our continued resilience, whether that be financial or simply sharing about us and what we do.

We recognize we are one of infinite groups seeking funding during this time. If you only have a small amount of money to donate to Covid-19 relief, we encourage donating first and foremost to least-resourced groups (undocumented workers not receiving government checks, houseless folks in need of housing, etc). If you have the means, please consider donating to the Hub after and in addition to supporting these urgent needs.

The Hub Community Center is located in downtown Santa Cruz, CA, which is the unceded territory of the Awaswas-speaking Uypi Tribe. The Amah Mutsun Tribal Band, comprised of the descendants of indigenous people taken to missions Santa Cruz and San Juan Bautista during Spanish colonization of the Central Coast, is today working hard to restore traditional stewardship practices on these lands and heal from historical trauma. More information http://amahmutsun.org