An iconic spot for San Lorenzo Valley locals to eat, drink and be merry, Henflings came under new ownership recently after being purchased by Mario Ibarra and his business partner, Antonio. Born and raised in La Paz, Mexico, and now a Ben Lomond resident, Ibarra has over 25 years of do-it-all industry experience, starting as a dishwasher before evolving to cook, server, manager and then ultimately becoming an owner of several local spots. Upon learning Henflings was for sale, he leaped at the opportunity to carry on its long-standing legacy, making it the fifth place he has owned.
Ibarra’s love for socializing and serving people with an “everyone is family” mindset makes for a perfect pairing with Henflings’ ethos, a place he describes as a rustic biker-vibed restaurant/bar/nightclub with themed nights and plenty of live entertainment. The elevated bar food menu features classic finger food options of buffalo chicken wings, onion rings, jalapeño poppers and garlic/parmesan fries, and bigger plates like ground ribeye hamburgers and salads such as the Italian Chop. Mexican options abound as well: al pastor tacos with homemade tortillas and even a popular birria “pizza” with slow-cooked shredded beef, mozzarella, onions and cilantro between two flour tortillas.
Tell me more about your special nights.
MARIO IBARRA: Henflings has been here for over 40 years with an already great local following. Live entertainment has always been a big part of that, so we continue to offer fun events that bring the community together. We do trivia on Tuesdays, bingo (“Flingo”) on Wednesdays, karaoke on Thursdays and live music on Friday/Saturday. We are also planning to offer stand-up comedy soon too. Henflings is a really special place and it’s always fun to be here.
To what do you attribute your success in the industry?
I have a positive mentality that when you want something, you have to go for it and really fight for it. Owning my previous restaurants, I really had to commit myself, put myself out there and hustle to make it happen. And now up here in the mountains, I have found a really amazing community and I am blessed to call my customers my friends. Owning restaurants is not easy—there are a lot of stresses and responsibilities—but seeing happy faces on my guests makes it all worth it.
Your story about the chance meetup with Bob Dylan is not so far-fetched. Probably around the same time period, I was parked by brother Peter Vizzusi (Magic Sands Glass) in the Catalyst deli while big brother went surfing. Alone at a table, in walked a wild-looking lady, beads everywhere and cursing at the bearded man she was with. I was chugging an apple cider and she motioned me over and out of her knapsack came a bottle of Southern Comfort, grabbing my cider bottle and pouring the booze in. “Here ya go kid…have fun! No imposter here, it was Janis Joplin!
John Vizzusi | Sights & Sounds Films
MORE BOB
I loved Geoffrey Dunn’s article and review of the new biopic about Bob Dylan, A Complete Unknown. In it Dunn mentions that he read somewhere that Jay Cocks “actually interviewed Dylan in 1964 while Cocks was a student at Kenyon College.” This is true. The interview was published in the Nov. 20, 1964, edition of the Kenyon Collegian, and it is also included in the book Bob Dylan—The Essential Interviews (pp. 31-39; Simon & Shuster, 2006, edited by Jonathan Cott), which can be viewed on the Internet Archive. Best wishes.
Mike Ross
ONLINE COMMENTS
MORPH THE WHARF
Greensite doesn’t want anything changed. The plan included a fishing deck below the walkway on the east side of the wharf, badly needed, and other improvements. If the wharf costs rise, she and her group, Don’t Morph the Wharf, should be morally responsible…not that they would ever be fiscally responsible.
Robert Bosso | GoodTimes.sc
RIVER WORK
I was delighted to learn about the rare cooperation between conservationists and farmers with regard to the health of the Pajaro River. Co-writers Julie Flannery and Richard Stockton brought life and understanding to this near-heroic effort.
Daniel Goldstein | GoodTimes.sc
NO ONE WANTS A REMAKE?
Who wrote this headline? Of COURSE we want to see this new retelling of Nosferatu! By the way, I had already forgotten about Chloë Grace Moretz’s feral teenager in Let Me In; it’s the original actress in Let the Right One In that I remember, which raises the question, who really wanted to see a remake of THAT?
Vikaryis Thrill | GoodTimes.sc
TAQUIZAS GABRIEL REVIEW
We ordered tamales, rice and beans for our Christmas Eve dinner for eight people. We picked up our order from the Capitola Mall. Everything was hot and beautifully prepared for transport. We all agree, the best tamales we’ve ever had, and the rice was outstanding! We were so happy Gabriel made them to order this year! My husband and I often stop at Gabriel’s for a taco and fresh horchata that they make daily. Last night we had a dozen chicken, a dozen pork and six vegetarian. All were delicious and not packed with too much masa…just right! Thanks, Gabriel!
It’s a portent that we celebrated the 100th anniversary of the Boardwalk’s Giant Dipper roller coaster this year, because 2024 has been a roller coaster of a ride.
On the one hand, we’ve had floods, one wharf collapsed and one was rebuilt, power outages, a tornado, and we elected a president who has no love for California or the immigrants who do so much to support the economy on every level, from the fields to the silicon clean rooms.
On the other, we’ve had major development around the county, particularly downtown Santa Cruz, where years of asking for more housing have finally taken shape in the form of giant apartment buildings along Pacific Avenue.
Will more rooms bring down what are unlivable rent and home ownership costs? That’s the big question that politicians and developers have been pitching and debating for decades.
Our year-end review looks at the housing projects, as well as the year’s big local stories.
Talking about ups and downs, we lost the Jewel Theater at the Tannery. After it sat empty for months, the nonprofit group Theatre 831 (the parent organization of All About Theatre) took it over. Christina Waters does an interview with the new head of the Colligan Theater and gives us a lot of hope for live plays in the future.
Holy coffee, Batman, Santa Cruz has plenty of holy coffee you didn’t know about. Learn all about it in John Koenig’s article, “Good Brews.” Cheers.
In a million years I never thought I’d see the day that cannabis was legalized here or anywhere. I used to see the Legalize booths at various public functions and kind of laugh to myself that they were sure wasting time. Slap me in the face! It’s now legal for medical or pleasurable pursuits. But, 2024 wasn’t so great for the cannabis industry, says our columnist Dan Mitchell. Read it and weep.
Holy chicken wings, Batman, Henflings is back. One of the premier entertainment halls in the mountains, a place with a 40-year-long history of great music and tavern food has returned with new owners. Andrew Steingrube fills us in. And yup, they have chicken wings.
Finally, raise a glass to Vine & Dine columnist Josie Cowden, marking her 25th anniversary with Good Times. Happy New Year to her, and to us all.
Brad Kava, editor
PHOTO CONTEST
TIDE TURNING This Monterey Bay Sanctuary plaque from the damaged wharf somehow managed to make it onto Seabright Beach unscathed. Photograph by Jim Sklenar
GOOD IDEA
As in previous years, the Santa Cruz Police Department will deploy all
available officers to ensure a safe New Year’s Eve environment.
They will enact a Safety Enhancement Zone in the downtown corridor from 8am Dec. 31 to 8am Jan. 1. They will pass out triple fines for lawbreakers.
Those include possessing alcoholic beverages in public and other unsafe or illegal behavior-related ordinances, such as public urination.
GOOD WORK
Over this year, the Monterey Bay Economic Partnership helped secure two California Advanced Services Fund Adoption Account grants, which launched outreach to improve access and adoption of digital literacy skill-building across San Benito, Santa Cruz and Monterey counties. Working in collaboration with technical and administrative assistance, new community workshops helped further close the digital divide, getting computing devices into the hands of low-income residents and helping them acquire the digital fluency skills to use them effectively.
Because of those funds, Loaves, Fishes and Computers was able to complete 303 digital literacy courses for residents of the tri-county region, distribute 550 computer devices, serve a total of 528 residents through digital literacy courses, and provide tech support for 400 seniors.
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
“What we know is a drop, what we don’t know is an ocean.” —Isaac Newton
California lawmakers in 2024 introduced 4,821 bills, but most of them were tossed, rejected or never even saw the light of day during a months-long legislative process.
Just 1,206 made it to Gov. Gavin Newsom’s desk, with 1,017 getting signed into law and the others vetoed.
Such is the process every year, as senators and assembly members seek to fine-tune the state’s legal machinations. California residents, then, must adjust to a spate of new laws that affect nearly every facet of life.
Here are a few of the more notable Assembly Bills (AB) and Senate Bills (SB) that take effect this year, not the least of which are 10 laws that target retail theft.
Among other things, these laws increase penalties for repeat offenders and allow felony charges for some crimes.
AB 1779—Prosecutors can consolidate crimes from multiple jurisdictions into one case.
AB 1802—Permanently allows felony charges for organized retail theft. Indefinitely extends the CHP’s Property Crimes Task Force.
AB 2943—Targets serial retail theft for crimes committed within 90 days of each other.
AB 3209—Allows restraining orders against theft suspects.
SB 905—Allows prosecution of auto burglary whether the vehicle was locked or not.
SB 982—Laws targeting organized retail theft are now permanent.
SB 1416—Increases penalties for selling, exchanging or returning stolen property.
Food delivery services
SB 1490—Requires food delivery services such as Doordash and GrubHub to specify the fees they charge to both customers and restaurants.
Menstrual products for incarcerated people
AB 1810—Requires jails and prisons to provide menstrual products to female inmates, without them having to first request them.
New parking rule
AB 413—Also called the “daylighting law,” this prohibits parking from within 20 feet of a corner. The law was designed to eliminate blind spots, increase visibility and make it easier for drivers to see pedestrians and other vehicles.
Workers Rights
SB 988—Freelance Worker Protection Act requires employers to pay freelance workers within the time outlined in their contract, and within 30 days if there is no contract.
Housing
AB 2347—This law changes the time tenants have to respond to eviction notices from five days to 10.
SB 1395—Allows for streamlined zoning and faster building for single-room housing for unhoused people, and lets developers bypass environmental review for the projects.
Reckless Driving and Sideshows
AB 1978—Allows police to seize vehicles used in a sideshow without arresting the suspect.
AB 2186—People who race in a parking facility can be arrested and their vehicle impounded for 30 days.
AB 2807—Defines a “sideshow” and a “street takeover” as the same type of event.
AB 3085—Allows police to impound vehicles used in a sideshow without a warrant.
Electric Bicycle Safety
AB 1774—Prohibits modifying an electric bicycle’s speed capability and also selling a product or device that can modify the speed capability.
Start the year off with a bang and get a luscious bottle of pinot. I recommend Silver Mountain’s estate-bottled 2016 Pinot Noir. Silver Mountain founder/winemaker Jerold O’Brien has been in the wine business since the ’70s, becoming a leader in “organic” and “sustainable” farming—long before it became de rigueur.
The 2016 Pinot Noir ($50) is made with organically grown grapes from O’Brien’s property and some from the adjacent Nelson family property, both farmed by Silver Mountain. The end result is a fruit-laden elixir bursting with flavors of earth, spice, smoke—and gorgeous aromas of red fruit, mushrooms, leather.
In 2007, O’Brien installed one of the largest solar arrays in the Santa Cruz Mountains, making Silver Mountain entirely self-sufficient. It saves resources and is in keeping with O’Brien’s practices.
Silver Mountain also sells pinot noirs from Sonnet Wine Cellars, the label of consulting winemaker Anthony Craig.
My first day of work at Good Times was January 17, 2000, as proofreader, which I did for 17 years, while also doing weekly restaurant reviews. I now love writing my Vine & Dine column on wine and food-related topics. To celebrate 25 years at Good Times, I’m toasting myself with a good bottle of bubbly!
Wine on Sale at Shopper’s Corner
Shopper’s Corner, owned by the Beauregard family, carries a wide selection of wine, with regular on-sale offers by the case or by the bottle. Look for bargain bottles for under $15. You’ll find Andre Beauregard in the store to help you with any questions.
The Amah Mutsun Land Trust, an organization led by the Amah Mutsun Tribal Band, works to preserve and restore the lands of its ancestors. The nonprofit is participating in Santa Cruz Gives, a fundraising initiative created by Good Times in 2015.
Both this year and last, the Amah Mutsun Land Trust has been near the top in both the amount of money raised and the number of donors. To see this year’s leaderboard—and to donate now through Dec. 31—visit SantaCruzGives.org.
Celebrating its 10th anniversary, the Amah Mutsun Land Trust is using this fundraising drive to build its land acquisition capabilities, protect sacred sites and establish its first-ever climate change program.
The Amah Mutsun are a tribal band of the Ohlone people, inhabitants of California’s central coast of California. Before European contact, the Ohlone lived in small, independent communities and relied on hunting, fishing and gathering for subsistence. They had a rich cultural and spiritual life, and a deep understanding of their environment.
The Ohlone were deeply affected by the establishment of the Spanish missions in the 18th and 19th centuries. Among the destructive practices inflicted on the Ohlone and other tribes were forced conversion to Christianity and suppression of Native American spiritual practices, forced labor and harsh living conditions. Forced relocation resulted in loss of land and resources and the separation of families.
European diseases led to devastating epidemics and high mortality rates among the Ohlone tribes.
Despite these challenges, the Amah Mutsun and Ohlone people have endured, and they continue to work to protect their ancestral lands and preserve their cultural heritage.
The last fluent speaker of the Mutsun language was Ascensión Solórsano de Cervantes. She was a healer and an herbal expert. In the 1920s and ’30s, she shared her knowledge of language, culture, plant uses and customs with John P. Harrington, an ethnographer from the Smithsonian Institute.
Today, the Amah Mutsun Tribal Band builds upon her contributions to revive their cultural heritage and traditional ecological knowledge.
The land trust is an initiative of the Amah Mutsun Tribal Band, which aims to access, protect and steward lands that are integral to their identity and culture. The trust was formally established in 2013, and in 2015 became a fully incorporated 501(c)(3) organization.
Its stewardship area covers a large portion of the traditional territory of the Amah Mutsun Tribal Band, stretching from Año Nuevo in the north to Santa Clara in the south. The trust is involved in a variety of initiatives—including archaeological and fire research, educational gardens and land conservation—and has formed partnerships with conservation organizations, land managers and research institutions to further those goals.
One of the trust’s projects is the Amah Mutsun Relearning Program at the UC Santa Cruz Arboretum, a collaborative initiative with the Amah Mutsun Tribal Band. PHOTO: Amah Mutsun Land Trust
With a focus on Santa Cruz County, the trust engages approximately 200 tribal members and 500 county residents annually in programs promoting Indigenous leadership in conservation.
Partnering with conservation organizations and research institutions, the trust has successfully collaborated on projects at the UCSC Arboretum, the Museum of Art and History, Cotoni-Coast Dairies National Monument, Wilder Ranch State Park, Soquel Demonstration Forest and San Vicente Redwoods. Through these efforts, the trust aims to foster healthier and more resilient ecosystems in Santa Cruz County and beyond.
One of these projects is the Amah Mutsun Relearning Program at the UC Santa Cruz Arboretum, a collaborative initiative between the Amah Mutsun Tribal Band and the Arboretum. The program’s primary goal is to assist the tribe in cultural revitalization and relearning traditional knowledge, particularly in the field of native plants and their uses.
Through workshops, classes and hands-on experiences, the Relearning Program engages tribal members and the broader community in learning about the Amah Mutsun’s cultural heritage and the importance of native plants in their traditions. By working together, the UC Santa Cruz Arboretum and the Amah Mutsun Tribal Band aim to foster respect for Indigenous cultures and promote the preservation of traditional knowledge.
The AMLT Coastal Stewardship Camp for Native Youth is a program organized by the Amah Mutsun Land Trust, which aims to reconnect Native American youth with their coastal territories and provide culturally relevant environmental education. The camp is typically held over a period of two weeks and focuses on a variety of themes, including Mutsun stewardship, traditional culture, coastal and river ecosystems, climate change and traditional foods.
Participants engage in hands-on cultural learning and recreational activities, fostering an appreciation for the coastal environment and their cultural identity. The camp is hosted in collaboration with various partners, including the Costanoa Lodge and the California Coastal Conservancy, and is designed to create a space for Native American youth to connect with their ancestral lands and heritage.
In this season of giving, the Amah Mutsun Land Trust is counting on the generosity of community members to make a meaningful and historic difference. With a mission to restore Indigenous lands and traditions, protect sacred sites and restore traditional food systems, the trust invites the community to help create a lasting, sustaining impact on the region’s cultural heritage.
Santa Cruz Gives is funded by the Volunteer Center of Santa Cruz County, Community Foundation Santa Cruz County, Applewood Foundation, Joe Collins, Driscoll’s, Inc., Monterey Peninsula Foundation, 1440 Foundation, Santa Cruz County Bank, and Wynn Capital Management, as well as readers of Good Times, Pajaronian and Press Banner.
From All About Theatre to Theatre 831, performance entrepreneur Lindsey Chester isn’t afraid to leap over tall buildings. Taking over the former Tannery Arts Center home of the Jewel Theater with her new project, Theatre 831, Chester is already reaching out to local arts groups.
Giving priority to performance groups at the Tannery World Dance and Cultural Center, Chester is determined to expand the jewelbox theater’s event offerings in much the way that Kuumbwa and the Rio Theater have done.
Theatre 831 is one of 63 organizations participating in Santa Cruz Gives, the holiday fundraising program started by Good Times in 2015. To donate, visit SantaCruzGives.org by midnight on Dec. 31, 2024.
Within weeks of assuming management of the theater vacated last spring, Chester and her All About Theatre performers have already mounted a production of The Little Mermaid, essentially diving into her exhilarating new venture with little time for thinking twice. Many of her young students have gone on to larger regional stages, even Hollywood and Broadway.
“All About Theatre was my first child,” she admits. While Chester’s AAT will maintain a vigorous performance schedule at the Colligan, Chester has plenty of room for community groups to schedule musical and theatrical events throughout the year.
“We’re promoting it as a venue space,” Chester asserts. “It is the Colligan Theater, and All About Theatre happens to do some shows. I want to put it where we are more collaborative within the community.”
Chester sees artistic direction in Santa Cruz being refreshed by a post-COVID turnover in leadership. She cites Andrea Hart and the Cabrillo Stage, Charles Pasternak with Santa Cruz Shakespeare, and her own new leadership with Theatre 831. “I think we have an opportunity for education with new, vibrant people. We should all collaborate now.”
The last thing the Colligan’s new management wants is to create another exclusive performing arts silo. Chester acknowledges that there are grumbles about the Jewel becoming strictly a kids’ theatrical venue.
“I think those grumblers need to actually come and see a professional kids’ production. They are amazing. Some of our students have performed in [Actors’ Theatre’s] 8Tens, at Cabrillo Stage, and have been cast in [Santa Cruz Shakespeare’s] A Christmas Carol.”
Musing on the future of the Colligan Theater, Lindsey Chester says, ‘What we are aspiring to do is build an annual calendar where treasured groups from the local area can be expected here at those dates at that same time of year, every year.’
Chester senses a new attitude within local performance groups. “That us-versus-everybody-else attitude has never, ever served performing arts. People want more collaboration.”
Tuition from AAT parents has helped to support maintenance of a warehouse for costumes and other theatrical props, as well as leasing the Colligan Theater as a venue. “Our aspiration is that we would keep our current studio and would also be able to offer evening classes. There’s the main theater here, but there’s also the lobby where we could have open mic nights, other community events, exhibitions with live guitar music. We’re going to be applying for a liquor license so that other artists could have an intimate setting in the lobby, a little reception area also. Creative concession offerings will also bring in more support revenue.”
Yes, there are big challenges.
“We are literally hitting the ground like not just gazelles but cheetahs,” Chester says. “We basically had two and a half weeks to get in to learn the whole system. Getting it ready has taken copious amounts of manpower and labor, some of which are volunteers.”
But the goal is big, too: “What we are aspiring to do is build an annual calendar where treasured groups from the local area can be expected here at those dates at that same time of year, every year, so it becomes more of a consistent venue space.”
The next big challenge, she admits, “as we grapple with what this beautiful vision could be, is how to handle hiring. How do you hire somebody if they’re not needed full time? Maybe it will end up as the full-time position, but only maybe. That’s the beauty of having All About Theatre in there is that the bills get paid. We’re looking at how we adjust the infrastructure and find the environmentally friendly way of running things. So there’s a big learning curve, but once we’ve hit the ground running within the next couple of shows, I do feel that we will be able to move past the chaos.”
Find out about Theatre 831 and Colligan Theater programming at colligantheater.org.
Vampire pics are a perennial. Tales of undead blood suckers are probably the sturdiest horror film subgenre—outranking Frankenstein’s monster or, say, zombies—largely because of their morbid sexual component.
Typically, vampires sneak into their victims’ bedrooms late at night while they’re asleep, loosen the victims’ clothing, enter their dreams, and mount them in order to bite them and drain their blood. Those who survive are left in a somnambulistic daze. They typically wonder out loud, before they “die” and become vampires themselves, about this sensual, recurring nightmare they can’t seem to escape.
F.W. Murnau made the single best vampire film, Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror, as a silent in Germany in 1922. Of all the various remakes and spinoffs, among the scariest are Tod Browning’s Dracula (1931), Carl Theodor Dreyer’s Vampyr (1932), Werner Herzog’s Nosferatu the Vampyre (1979), Francis Ford Coppola’s Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992) and the Hammer Films remakes, especially Terence Fisher’s 1958 Horror of Dracula. Most of the rest are burlesques.
With that in mind, we arrive at writer-director Robert Eggers’ brand-new Nosferatu with a certain weary wariness. Surely we already know everything this kind of film could ever show us.
Eggers—maker of such iffy oddities as The Lighthouse and The Witch—hews closely to the Murnau and Herzog versions with his tale of a strange foreigner with evil intentions, vamping on a placid 19th-century European family.
Decadent undead nobleman Count Orlok (Bill Skarsgård) fits into the moldy gothic milieu quite adequately, but it’s Eggers’ disturbing scene construction that draws the viewer in. The modified black-and-white settings in Wisburg and Transylvania objectify various night terrors—frightened Rom villagers, a naked young woman on a horse, incomprehensible Romanian dialogue and above all Orlok’s castle, with its deep-black recesses. It’s a place where nothing lives.
The ancient names of Paracelsus and Agrippa, stirred into the discussion by learned Professor Albin von Franz (Willem Dafoe, dependable yet too familiar in this sort of costumer), only reinforce the murky mysticism. The dread enveloping the figure of Orlok is the dread of decomposing flesh come to life and now suddenly clawing at the existence of ordinary, unassuming people. Men and women with warm blood in their veins. The idea of Orlok’s apparent eternal invincibility is more frightening than any makeup effect.
Nicholas Hoult’s Thomas Hutter and his melancholic wife Ellen (overmatched Lily-Rose Depp) offer only token resistance to the threatening forces around them. Under Orlok’s influence, Ellen kisses Thomas in a way he’s never been kissed before. Meanwhile, the experience of their friend Anna Harding (Emma Corrin) is truly terrifying—being haunted by a fiendish Carpathian vampire is no way to spend a period of gestation.
Contrast the travails of these discomfited bourgeois folks with the plight of real estate agent Knock (Simon McBurney), Count Orlok’s insane, lick-spittle slave, confined in a Victorian madhouse yet monstrously obedient to his master’s commands. The vampire/Dracula subgenre has enjoyed some delightfully gaudy performances by its Renfields/Knocks over the years: the unforgettable Dwight Frye, Tom Waits, Roland Topor and Richard Jenkins (a standout in Matt Reeves’ Let Me In) immediately come to mind. McBurney’s Knock tends the garden admirably.
Eggers’ Nosferatu is not perfect. There’s too much superfluous dialogue, and the omnipresent sound cues detract from the creepiness—Murnau’s silence was far more disconcerting. When Ellen goes into Exorcist-style paroxysms in one scene, her husband shtups her violently—what kind of supernatural sexuality is that? As for Dafoe’s learned expert, when that actor turns on the sub-Freudian blather, there’s nowhere else to go.
The moody black-and-white cinematography of Jarin Blaschke is the best reason to stay with this well-intentioned tribute to the vampires of the past. There are a few nicely composed scenes, but nothing to make us forget about, for instance, Chloë Grace Moretz’s feral teenager in Let Me In. Eggers’ Nosferatu is a reminder of other, better horror films. Let it rest in peace.
Playing at Cinelux in Capitola, Scotts Valley and Watsonville; and Santa Cruz Cinema.
“Every person is a new door to a different world.” —Six Degrees of Separation
Village Santa Cruz County is a nonprofit, peer-support group of volunteers dedicated to aging better by increasing our social engagement and connections, and through shared knowledge and mutual support. The Village helps older adults remain independent, with less reliance on public services, and gives them a sense of purpose.
Mary K., a group member, explains, “On retiring I lost my daily social group; I felt isolated. With Village I found folks who share my joy of making new friends and helping others learn ways to celebrate or cope with life’s changes. I appreciate that we all come with unique stories.”
Now the Village wants to bring together adults of all ages to improve life for everyone.
Recent studies show that across the age spectrum, people are affected by social isolation and loneliness. And while the highest rates of social isolation are found among older adults, young adults are almost twice as likely to report feeling lonely as those over 65.
Breaking apart age group silos opens us to different perspectives. Just like members of Village help solve each other’s difficulties as they come up, to best solve community and world problems we need to all come together, sharing talents and strategies to make our world a better place. No single group can do this alone.
A Village Santa Cruz County gathering at Wilder Ranch. PHOTOS: Contributed
Our Village project for 2025 will add monthly co-generational programs with a long-term goal of forming lasting bonds between older and younger adults.
Forming lasting bonds takes time and a commitment to showing up. Area-based Community Circles and concept-focused Interest Group meet-ups are ongoing and in small groups, providing a venue where members can develop trusted relationships, ask for help from each other, and socialize with and learn from each other.
One such gathering is the Memoir Group, going into its fourth year. Participants Bruce and Dede share their thoughts on participating, with one describing it as “a safe and supportive place to share the highs and lows of my life’s journey” and the other explaining, “The confidential nature of our writings has enabled us to know one another at a deep and meaningful level and has enriched all of our lives.”
Sandy started the Solo Agers group in 2023, after her daughter moved to Portland, leaving her with no family in town. Solo Agers meet once a month to share their specific concerns and issues. They go out to lunch after the meeting. “So far, we’ve helped each other during knee replacement recovery, rides to/from medical procedures, and we’ve shared experiences and resources for repairs,” Sandy says.
Members reside throughout Santa Cruz County. In FY23-24, Village held 247 events with a total of 1,545 attendees. A monthly newsletter containing a wide variety of information is sent to more than 500 community members. And educational presentations are often open to the public.
Village Santa Cruz County is participating in Santa Cruz Gives, the holiday fundraising program started by Good Times in 2015. Donations via SantaCruzGives.org will help launch and sustain Co-generational Connections, bringing together the talents of young and old to build a more resilient Santa Cruz County community. Aging better together…at every age and stage.
Mary Howe is chair of the Village Advisory Board.
Santa Cruz Gives is funded by the Volunteer Center of Santa Cruz County, Community Foundation Santa Cruz County, Applewood Foundation, Joe Collins, Driscoll’s, Inc., Monterey Peninsula Foundation, 1440 Foundation, Santa Cruz County Bank, and Wynn Capital Management, as well as readers of Good Times, Pajaronian and Press Banner.
Some wonderful-looking Chinese food, Hunan beef and chicken.
Malou Knapp, 80, Retired
MARIA
I’m Venezuelan, and we make hallacas.They’re wrapped in banana leaves instead of corn husks. It’s a dough filled with beef stew that you spend a day making. We put peppers and raisins and an almond. So good!
Maria Isabel Alvarez, 28, Founder & CEO, Leaf and Vine on Pacific Avenue
ATHENA
Our son Charlie was born on Christmas, so he picks the meal every year. It’s kind of stress-free for us. The first year it was Cheetos and Mac and Cheese. This year he turns 20, and it’s going to be carbonara and burrata bruschetta and ube flan.
Athena Taylor, 38, Team Leader
CREO
I look forward to making tamales. Sometimes we make a pot roast, and with the leftovers we make tamales. I make a chipotle and guajillo chile sauce, fresh, and it’s great.
Creo Manrique, 32, Barista at Cat and Cloud, Abbott Square.
CLAY
My mom makes little thin Italian breadsticks, wrapped in bacon, and then covered in brown sugar. And then you bake it. It’s delicious!
Clay Powell, 32, Operations Supervisor, Leaf and Vine on Pacific Avenue
CARLOS
We try to make tamales every year for Christmas. We make chicken and pork, and then cheese with jalapeno strips, which is called rajas. Sometimes we make sweet ones made with pineapple or strawberry batter.
It’s a portent that we celebrated the 100th anniversary of the Boardwalk’s Giant Dipper roller coaster this year, because 2024 has been a roller coaster of a ride.
Here are a few of the more notable Assembly Bills and Senate Bills that take effect this year, not the least of which are 10 laws that target retail theft.
What is your favorite Christmas dinner tradition?
Some wonderful-looking Chinese food, Hunan beef and chicken.
Malou Knapp, 80, Retired
I’m Venezuelan, and we make hallacas.They’re wrapped in banana leaves instead of corn husks. It’s a dough filled with beef stew that you spend a day making. We put peppers and raisins and an almond. So good!
Maria Isabel Alvarez, 28, Founder & CEO,...
