Santa Cruz Chamber Players, Bravo, By Edita McQuary • Help Your

COMMUNITY NEWS Santa Cruz Chamber Players, Bravo

By Edita McQuary

It seems we are slowly getting out of our pandemic mode and to nearly normal!. After showing our vaccine cards and I.D.’s, we were allowed into Christ Lutheran Church to enjoy the season opener of the Santa Cruz Chamber Players Concert series.

On Nov. 4, Concert 1 of the 2021-22 season started off with “A World Tour of Nationalist Trios.”

Featured was the Verve Trio with Chia-Lin Yang, concert director, on piano, Ebert Tsai on violin and Brady Anderson on his 131-year-old German cello.

It was an excellent performance!

Enjoying the concert of music by Joaquin Turina, Astor Piazolla and Antonin Dvorak were about 60 or so people, appropriately masked and distanced. The performance was repeated on Sunday afternoon at the same venue.

There are five more concerts in the series.

The Santa Cruz Chamber Players concert series is an annual celebration of quality chamber music performed by professional musicians who live and work in our community.

Presented in an informal environment, the concerts are designed to be artistically invigorating and appealing to music lovers of all ages and musical tastes.

Each concert has its own director and features different combinations of instruments, music of divergent styles, and distinct historical periods.

The group aims to keep the performance of chamber music alive for future generations.

The next concert will be “Gabriel Faure and His Circle of Influence” on Jan. 29 and 30 featuring The Nisene Ensemble: Cynthia Baehr-Williams, concert director and playing violin, Chad Kaltinger, on viola, Kristin Garbeff, cello and Kumi Uyeda, on piano.

Be sure to mark your calendars.

Our very generous local philanthropists, Pat and Rowland Rebele, have extended a challenge to match up to $7,500 in new or increased donations to the Santa Cruz Chamber Players. n •••

For season schedule and tickets, see: scchamberplayers.org.

Help Your Favorite Nonprofits at Santa Cruz Gives

Santa Cruz Gives, a countywide crowdfunding holiday campaign, will raise funds for 80 local nonprofits in its seventh season, which runs until midnight Dec. 31.

The campaign is at SantaCruzGives.

The website allows donors to browse profile pages to learn about each nonprofit’s mission and “Big Idea,” a project for 2022 to be funded with donations, then use a shopping cart to give. The minimum donation is $5.

Some of the local nonprofits and their “Big Ideas” are:

Nourishing Generations, which brought healthy cooking lessons on Zoom this year to women diagnosed with cancer, wants to train people in Live Oak and Watsonville about healthy cooking and spread the word to their neighbors.

Teen Kitchen Project in Soquel prepared and delivered 1,700 medicallytailored meals, a 150% increase, in 2021, and aims to raise money to buy two cargo vans for deliveries.

Valley Churches United aims to raise money to provide 12,500 pounds of food for those in need, as numbers surged after the devastating CZU lightning wildfire.

Community Action Board aims to raise $5,000 for two immigrant youth to renew their DACA status, buy ingredients for six potluck meals for 12 seniors at the Davenport Resource Service Center, provide gift cards to 50 farmworkers worried that vaccination will mean missing work, and financial assistance to four families who are homeless and 20 families of Day Worker Center members who lost work due to COVID.

The current leaders on the site are:

The Santa Cruz County Animal

Shelter Foundation, which is increasing its free and low-cost spay and neuter services, jumped to an early lead, raising more than $61,000.

Coastal Watershed

Council, which has a vision to make the Riverwalk the Central Park of Santa Cruz, raising more than $42,000,

Dientes, which is building a new dental clinic in Live Oak, raising more than $40,000.

Organizations were encouraged to raise challenge grants from major donors to launch their campaign.

“It lets the public know that major donors, who generally do their homework before giving significant funds to nonprofits, support the work,” said Santa Cruz Gives coordinator Jeanne Howard, adding that as of the Nov. 17 launch, “We already have $439,578 in challenge grants and $120,500 in matching funds.”

The selected nonprofits will receive donated funds, matching funds, and be eligible for three special awards: Most Donors Overall, Most Innovative Program, and Most Creative Campaign. Three nonprofits in each category will be awarded $1,000.

During the 2020 pandemic year, donations to Santa Cruz Gives totaled $709,617, a 73 percent increase over 2019.

Rounding out the top 10 in fundraising: Farm Discovery at Live Earth Farm, Friends of Santa Cruz Public Libraries, Senderos, CASA of Santa Cruz County, Homeless Garden Project, Regeneration and Soroptimist of Capitola. And 70 more worthy nonprofits are in the campaign. They cover the county geographically and represent a variety of needs: Youth, seniors, animals, the environment, education, health and wellness, food and nutrition, housing and homelessness, the arts, veterans, families, and people with disabilities.

The 80 were selected by a sixmember committee with diverse nonprofit experience.

Previously, participation was limited to provide potential for each nonprofit to raise sufficient funds for the staff time spent on the campaign.

The number doubled this year due to the retirement of the long-running Human Race, a major local fund-raiser.

Karen Delaney, executive director of the Volunteer Center, the producer of the Human Race, explained, “Santa Cruz Gives has better technology, a wider reach and more of the money raised goes to create good, less to put on the event.”

Visit https://scvolunteercenter.org/events-2/ human-race/ for more information.

“If any of the local nonprofits tried to create a platform like this for fundraising, it would not be economically feasible,” said Delaney. “Only large national organizations have had a tool like this at their disposal. Santa Cruz Gives puts this tool into the hands of local nonprofit community.”

Nonprofits in Santa Cruz Gives report that a majority of donors are new and younger, broadening the base of support.

Good Times and the Volunteer Center of Santa Cruz County are the presenting sponsors. Additional sponsors include Community Foundation Santa Cruz County; three funds at the Community Foundation Santa Cruz County: The Applewood Fund, The Joe Collins Fund, and the Bud & Rebecca Colligan Fund; and Driscoll’s, Inc. Other business sponsors are Santa Cruz County Bank, Wynn Capital Management, Oswald, The Pajaronian, and Press Banner. n

See the FAQ at SantaCruzGives.org for information or contact Jeanne Howard at 831601-1691 or Jeanne@santacruzgives.org.