Pie for the People – Santa Cruz will hold a community pie potluck to benefit Life Lab on Sunday, October 2, 2022 from 1:00-3:00 PM at the Life Lab garden on the UCSC Farm and Garden on the UC Santa Cruz campus.*
Bring a $5+ donation per person, a sweet or savory vegetarian pie, and if you can, a reusable plate & utensils. (Bringing a pie is not required, but an added donation of a few dollars is suggested.) This is a family friendly event.
A beloved local nonprofit founded over 40 years ago, Life Lab cultivates children’s love of learning, healthy food, and nature through garden-based education. Through workshops and consultations, Life Lab has provided tens of thousands of educators across the country with the inspiration and information necessary to engage young people in gardens and on farms. Locally, 1,400 lessons each year are led by Life Lab staff in 33 local schools alone.
Donations from the day will help provide some much needed love and renewal to the 22-year-old outdoor classroom located at the UC Santa Cruz farm. Funds will help fix up the big Circle Bench and add an elliptical tent for shade in the garden that is a hub of activity for field trips with more than 1,500 children each year and for teacher workshops for hundreds of educators annually.
“Life Lab’s Garden Classroom, at the UCSC Farm, brings life to learning and learning to life! We appreciate the community support that makes this demonstration garden space an inspirational resource for so many people!” noted Life Lab Development Coordinator Nicole Albuquerque.
Pie for the People-Santa Cruz is an intergenerational group of DIY community activists that host fundraising pie potlucks to support local nonprofits. Since January of 2015, Pie for the People-Santa Cruz has raised over $18,000 to feed the homeless, support women with cancer, keep a community garden going, and buy supplies for a tutoring center/food bank. They host fun, family friendly, community building events focused on pie.
Lisa Segnitz, a Pie for the People organizer and mother of three says, “ The pie organizing committee loves the way Life Lab brings gardening to kids throughout the entire county.”
Life Lab’s expanding partnership with Pajaro Valley Unified School District will bring Life Lab gardens to all 16 PVUSD elementary schools by 2024. Experiential learning is always essential, but as kids are still healing from the impacts of the pandemic, their time in the garden classroom even more important.”
Another pie organizer Jenny Kurzweil says, “At Pie for the People – Santa Cruz we maintain a hyper-local sense of activism and most importantly, joy. We are working to create change here at home with the hope that our actions will ripple outward…one pie at a time.”
Note on COVID safety: This event is outdoors. Volunteers serving pie will be vaccinated and boosted. To protect our young children, elders & immunocompromised friends, we request that all attendees be vaccinated & boosted.
*Note on transportation and parking. Bicycling, car pooling, ridesharing, and public transportation are encouraged as parking is limited. If you drive to the event, please plan to park in UCSC Lot #170 or Lot #116 (and walk to the farm). There will be directional signage to help you get to the correct parking lot and farm entrances. Download a parking map here. Please feel free to reach out to Nicole Albuquerque at Life Lab (nicole@lifelab.org) with any accessibility questions or needs.
More information: http://www.pieforthepeople-santacruz.org
