Cultivating the Beloved Community

My name is Alison Alkon and I’m a professor in the community studies program at UCSC. I do research and write and teach about food justice, meaning the ways that inequalities like race, class and gender affect who gets access to healthy food, so clearly an organization like the Homeless Garden Project, that helps folks who are struggling to both …

Charles and son

A Sense of Fulfillment

This testimonial was delivered at HGP’s October First Friday event, Hope Renewed, at the Downtown Store on October 4th, 2024, following a talk from Santa Cruz Mayor Fred Keeley. Hello, my name is Charles Ian Stange, a 43-year-old originally from Berkeley, California, born on September 17, 1981, at Alta Bates Hospital. My mother, Jill Marie Blough, was just 17 and …

Engaging in Active Hope

We are pleased to share this keynote talk from HGP’s July 20,2024 Sustain Supper by Anne R. Kapuscinski, Director of Coastal Science and Policy program & Professor of Environmental Studies, University of California, Santa Cruz & Chair of Board of Directors, Union of Concerned Scientists. Video of the full presentation is at the bottom of the post with Anne’s talk …

A Second Opportunity

Being homeless I am never happy, but sometimes I am content. Since I started working for HGP and earning a paycheck I have been content. My god, just having a bike that’s not stolen is a godsend. I use to have to walk everywhere, about 8 miles a day for most of a year.