Farmworker Reality Tour

Sunday • July 19 • 3:00-7:00 PM • Free
40 Zils Rd • Watsonville 

Farmworker Reality Tours offer a unique opportunity to bridge the gap between the farmworker community and those who enjoy the fruits of their hard labor.

Farmworker housing is often located in remote areas, making these essential workers nearly invisible to the general public. These tours aim to change that by bringing you face-to-face with the people who make our food possible. On this immersive tour, you’ll have the chance to meet and engage in meaningful conversations with farmworkers, listen to their powerful testimonials, and experience their daily lives firsthand.

You’ll share their food, visit their living quarters, and gain a deeper understanding of the challenges they face. Join in building connections, fostering empathy, and creating a more informed and compassionate community. Be part of an eye-opening experience that will leave you with a profound appreciation for the hardworking individuals who sustain our food supply. Don’t miss this opportunity to make a difference—reserve your spot on a Farmworker Reality Tour today!

Sign up and more info here.

Virtual Author Talk with Reyna Grande, author of Migrant Heart -Essays about Things I Can’t Forget

Thursday • July 16 • 11-12 AM • ONLINE

With her signature blend of sophistication and raw honesty, Grande interrogates how living between two nations, two languages, and two identities has shaped the woman, mother, and writer she has become. Moving from the legacy of violence in her hometown of Iguala, Mexico, to a bittersweet family vacation in Europe spent reconciling her own impoverished past with her children’s world of abundance, she uncovers startling truths about the nature of survival.

Whether being racially profiled in the Arizona borderlands or finding unexpected wisdom from the slugs in her garden, Grande unflinchingly asks: How do we bridge the gap between who we were and who we have become? How do we turn pain into power? When memory threatens to define us, how can we use story to heal while still honoring our boundaries?

Register today for this virtual talk if you identify as a seeker, a dreamer, or “anyone who believes in the enduring, transformative power of finding one’s voice.”
Register here for this Santa Cruz Public Library sponsored event.

SILA — Kalaallit Nunaat (Greenland)

Thursday • July 16 • 6:00-8:30 PM • Doors open at 5:30 • by donation
Resource Center for Nonviolence (RCNV) • 612 Ocean Street • Santa Cruz

In Greenland, the word Sila holds everything at once — the weather, the breath, the consciousness connecting all living things. This tender, nonlinear documentary follows Inuit women moving through three hundred years of Danish colonialism: forced baptisms, children sent abroad to be remade, and a systematic medical programme that inserted contraceptive devices into girls as young as thirteen, without consent, without warning, without asking. Their bodies became a site of colonial administration. Their wombs, silenced.

The film journeys into ceremony — the shaman’s call home, the heartbeat of the drum, the slow needle-drawn return of ancestral body markings erased within a century of missionary arrival. Visually luminous and spiritually attuned, Sila holds grief and remembering in the same breath: a remembering that travels through bone and nerve and the long line of mothers, all the way back to the first conscious human being. Still there. Still listening.

Ticket sales support both RCNV and SAND’s vital work, and 50% of proceeds after film production costs directly fund Indigenous-led initiatives in the featured communities. Complimentary tickets are available to ensure no one is turned away for lack of funds. Click here to secure your complimentary ticket. Everyone is welcome!

Details and sliding scale tickets

Redistribute Wealth: Raíces y Cariño | Roots and Love

Each month SURJ Santa Cruz County suggests a local organization that is doing excellent work strengthening racial and economic justice in our county. If you’re able, please consider making a donation– healthy for you, healthy for our community. Thank you!

A Community Collective for Families

Raíces y Cariño is an equitable, inclusive, and safe space for the community to gather and raise their children together. They are a hub connecting diverse families, educators, and organizations to create cross-cultural connections and wellbeing for the whole family including classes for kids and their caregivers such as yoga, artistic expression, gymnastics, free playtime, and bilingual sensory play.  They also provide low cost meeting space for many other groups and organizations in the area including SURJ’s own Rainbow Defense Coalition!  Please support this awesome group that supports so many others. 

Ways to donate:
Via fiscal sponsor the 418 Project
PayPal
Venmo

Come Phonebank with SURJ National

Several shifts starting July 16 • ONLINE

We are now in a decisive phase of the fight against authoritarianism, the threat is real and the stakes are high. And people are fighting back. Millions have protested, and we’ve watched powerful organizing coming out of Minneapolis, Chicago, and other cities that have borne the brunt of ICE’s assaults on our communities. Mass anger exists, but mass organization does not yet exist at the scale needed to win. Movements become real when they reach millions: organized, trained, and acting together.

Come take action with SURJ National! We’ll be calling voters about primary races working to elect progressive champions in key states and districts to ultimately take back BOTH the House and Senate this November.

Come as you are! No experience needed! Full training & lots of support included!

Feeling Unsure?

  • Our model works – learn from the best! Our phonebanks have one of the highest rates of success in the country. No matter whether you’re brand new caller or a seasoned organizer, if you join our banks, you can trust that you are putting your effort into a method that works. And you’ll get to learn powerful organizing skills from seasoned leaders!
  • Our conversations are based on open-ended questions and deep listening. You do not need to be an expert on the issues or a candidate – our phone banks are successful because we deeply connect with voters and make them feel heard.
  • Want to hear what a phonebank is like? Check out this video interviewing SURJ phonebankers.

Many shifts to choose from! More info and sign up HERE.

The Outer Work Project

July 11 – October 11 • 9 – 11AM PST • ONLINE
Sliding scale (no one will be turned away for lack of funds)

The Outer Work Project is a transformative 3-month online program helping guide people from individual resilience and healing towards meaningful social change. 

]oin the 3.5% needed to turn the tide! Be one of the 9 million Americans needed!

The Outer Work Project – Healing. Community. Social Change

From the Outer Work Project website linked above:
Continuing to witness systemic harm without a channel for action leads to moral injury . This isn’t a personal failing—it’s a sign of your integrity. But it is particularly insidious because it doesn’t just make you sad; it erodes your agency.

Feelings of hypocrisy, soul-ache, burnout—these can all be indications of moral wounds calling out for healing. Collective action is the most effective way to reawaken your nervous system and regain a sense of agency and healthy power in your life.

By finding a strategic role to play, you aren’t just helping the world; you are modeling for the next generation what it looks like to live in alignment with your values even when things are difficult.

Right now, we are in a critical window ahead of the 2026 U.S. Midterm elections.
You could wait until the final weeks of the election to vote and donate in a panic, or you could join The Outer Work Project, and move from reactive to proactive.
By the time the midterms are here, you will be well on your way toward the change we need!

Sign Up Here

Cultivating Care

4th Monday of the Month • Next Meeting June 22 • 5:30-7:30 PM • Free •
Ocean View Park • 102 Ocean View Ave • Santa Cruz • wheelchair accessible

Our Purpose
In the spirit of collective, interconnected liberation, the intention of Cultivating Care is to actively build anti-racist culture by understanding and dismantling white supremacy as it exists in ourselves and our culture. While we are clear that we must also work in relationship with Black and BIPOC humans to create new systems where all people are valued and thriving, this group is for being in compassionate relationship with each other to address our whiteness. This container is for all of us, wherever we are on our racial justice journey, to have courageous, vulnerable conversations that foster belonging, healing, calling in and showing up.

This space is for:

  • White people who are new to anti-racism work and want a place to begin learning responsibly
  • White people who have been engaged in this work and want to continue deepening their practice
  • People who are willing to be challenged, reflect on their impact, and take accountability for harm
  • Participants who understand that this space is about learning, not perfection
  • People who understand this is ongoing work, not a one-time learning experience

Why is this space centered on white people? Are you centering whiteness?
For decades—and longer—Black and BIPOC leaders have called on white people to “get your people”: to take responsibility for organizing within white communities and addressing racism there. Because of racism, white people often have greater access to and influence with other white people, and therefore, have a responsibility to engage their people and communities in this work. This space is one response to that call.

Is this space only for white people?
No. Everyone is welcome to attend. However, the content, focus, and structure of the group are designed primarily to support white people in their anti-racism learning and organizing. 

Register here for Cultivating Care

Film Screening: Space Is the Place  +  Sun Ra: Do the Impossible


Friday • June 19 • 7:30 PM • $10 advance / $15 at the door
The 418 Project – Small Theater • 155 S River St • Santa Cruz

Join the 418 Project for a special Juneteenth celebration honoring the visionary world of Sun Ra through an unforgettable double feature screening of SPACE IS THE PLACE (1974) and the new documentary SUN RA: DO THE IMPOSSIBLE (2025).

Blending jazz, Afrofuturism, philosophy, performance, and radical imagination, Sun Ra’s work challenged audiences to envision entirely new possibilities for art, identity, and liberation. From the surreal sci-fi world of Space Is the Place to the expansive legacy explored in Do the Impossible, this evening celebrates one of the most influential and uncompromising artists of the 20th century.

Come experience a night of music, film, imagination, and collective reflection.

Get Tickets for Juneteenth Double Feature Here

BLACK SURF SANTA CRUZ LIBERATION PADDLE OUT

Friday  June 19 • 12pm – 5pm 
Cowell Beach • Santa Cruz • Free

Join Black Surf Santa Cruz as they come together at the shoreline to celebrate, connect, and spend the day in and around the ocean. There will be music, games, food, art, and time in the water — with free surf equipment (while supplies last), ocean safety support, and a welcoming space for all levels. Whether you’re paddling out or staying on the sand, there’s a place for you here.

RSVP here to spend the day with Black Surf Santa Cruz! Check out the LPO 2026 webpage for more information and to stay updated on the latest LPO news!

Want to Support the LPO?

Here’s what they need: 

  • Volunteers — sign-up here or on their website!
  • Monetary donations — help us reach our community fundraising goal! Venmo/PayPal: @blacksurfsantacruz or head over to our site for more ways to donate. Please write “paddle-out” in the notes to include your name on our community surf board! 
  • Donations for our prizes & games — prizes & giveaways welcome! 
  • Corporate Sponsors — help us expand our impact! 
  • Spread the word — tag your crew & bring a friend!

De-escalation Training

Wednesdy • June 17 • 5:00-7:30 PM 
Resource Center for Nonvioence • 612 Ocean St • Santa Cruz
wheelchair accessible • ticketed event

De-escalation skills are key in helping people (including ourselves) reduce anger and increase the calmness and clarity that allow us to deal with immediate problems and issues more effectively.
In this fun, informative, and interactive class, we will:

  • Investigate the way that stress increases our potential for anger and reactivity;
  • Understand the physiology of anger
  • Learn Blocks to Listening & Active Listening Skills
  • Learn and practice techniques for de-escalating anger and conflict with role plays and real life examples.


Register Here