Community Advocacy & Community-Building
There are many outstanding organizations in Santa Cruz County with whom Oakes students could learn and advance their aims. Some require special training and commitment beyond a service-learning course. We encourage students to enroll in our courses to build skills and connections in the community–and to explore the possibilities of further work. The following list represents organizations and sites with whom we have worked in sustained partnership and CARA course placements.
We are committed to developing partnerships, collaborative projects, and placements through respectful, ongoing dialogue, toward a more connected and inclusive community and region. We prioritize projects that build community capacity for action, and that develop university-community engagement in a sustainable way.
Click here to view Legal Provider Network
Community Action Board
The Community Action Board of Santa Cruz County is an important network of organizations throughout Santa Cruz County. CAB’s mission is to partner with the community to eliminate poverty and create social change through advocacy and essential services. Puentes is proud to partner with CAB and its networked agencies on projects, campaigns, and at its various community sites. CARA has partnered with the Thriving Immigrants Collaborative to help research, coordinate, and develop services and policies for a community where immigrants are truly welcomed and supported to thrive. Course-collaborations with CAB have focused primarily on North County sites that students can access, and we look forward to further collaborations at: The Day Worker Center; and The Davenport Family Resource Center; Alcance; and the Rental Assistance Program.
Community Bridges
Community Bridges is a network of ten programs throughout the county that offers essential services and support to low-income families. The Oakes CARA program has worked primarily with the youth programs at Nueva Vista sites, and looks forward to many more years of collaboration.
Nueva Vista Community Resources
The Beach Flats Community Center; Familia Center; and family/youth services at Sycamore/Neary Housing are now known as Nueva Vista Community Resources, and are part of the Community Bridges network. Here, compassionate staff build a warm, friendly, safe place for the Santa Cruz community to access resources that offer stability and hope for the future.
Live Oak Community Resources include tutoring, advocacy, counseling, and healthcare eligibility services for all members of the family.
County Office of Education, Schools and Enrichment Programs
The Oakes CARA Program seeks to be useful to the educational and life aspirations of families in our region, and to partner with educational leaders in our county, including those at the County Office of Education (COE) and Cabrillo College, schools, and youth programs. The COE supports this excellent Resource Directory of support programs.
The CARA Program has worked closely with schools and youth programs accessible to campus for over ten years (Corre la Voz Program, Quantum Leap, Club Links; Youth Networks). We specialize in multi-modal and bilingual literacies to promote academic excellence, family involvement, and personal and cultural dignity.
The Diversity Center
The Diversity Center is the only LGBTQ+ Community Center on the Central Coast of California, and reaches approximately 10,000 individuals through our onsite programs, outreach and education events, our work with school-based Gay/Straight Alliances, and our Triangle Speakers program. The Center works to create connections, build community and reduce isolation among LGBTQ+ seniors, veterans, youth, and the Latinx community; teach acceptance and provide support for transgender individuals; and educate the community at large.
The Hub for Sustainable Living
The Santa Cruz Hub for Sustainable Living is a constellation of community-based projects that has been building and celebrating community and offering crucial resources since 1994. Current projects include The Bike Church, Ped-Ex, Hard Core Compost, The Fábrica Community Textile Arts & Salvage Workshop, Sanctuary Santa Cruz, SubRosa, Tenant Sanctuary. Organizations sponsored include: The California Field School, Santa Cruz Climate Action Network, Santa Cruz Community Orchard.
Resource Center for Non-Violence
The Resource Center for Nonviolence is a peace, justice and antiracism organization promoting the practice of nonviolent social change and supporting the growth of nonviolent activists. RCNV presents education and training online and at its user-friendly community center.
Sanctuary Santa Cruz
Sanctuary Santa Cruz is an assembly of volunteers: individuals of all walks of life and representatives of community organizations, large and small. We work to inform ourselves, our schools, employers, healthcare, social services and legal agencies and our elected leadership of the rights and responsibilities we all share, and to protect our community through education, advocacy and direct action.
Senderos
Senderos is a multi-service nonprofit creating pathways to success and building community by sharing Latino culture through cultural arts and by fostering educational opportunities. Senderos, meaning pathways, celebrates Latino culture and history through the artistic expression of dance and music, as well as supporting student academic success and adult basic education.
United We Dream
United We Dream transforms fear into organization and campaigns for immigrant justice and power. UWD builds immigrant youth-led campaigns at the local, state, and federal level.
Puentes Legal Providers
The following alphabetical list is of providers in our region that offer some free and some low-cost legal and advocacy services. See our Puentes courses, which are committed to working to help close the justice gap in our county, by developing networks and practices to support legal aid, community information workshops, restorative justice, and grassroots education.
California Rural Legal Assistance
CRLA emerged from the farmworker struggle in California, and now serves low-income individuals in 22 counties throughout the state. In Santa Cruz County, many CRLA clients are experiencing housing-related concerns. CRLA clients include individuals with disabilities, immigrant populations, school children, lesbian/gay/bisexual and transgender populations, seniors and individuals with limited English proficiency.
Community Action Board (CAB) offers specific legal services through several of its agencies.
Santa Cruz County Immigration Project provides free legal services to the immigrant community of Santa Cruz County and the Pajaro Valley. Services include but are not limited to: citizenship applications and interview preparation, Deferred Action (DACA), adjustment of status cases, changes of address, USCIS and consular inquiries, applications for permanent residence, relative visa petitions, replacement/renewal of green cards and work permits, Temporary Protected Status, and attorney referrals. The office is located in Watsonville.
Davenport Resource Center Located ten miles north of Santa Cruz, the Davenport Resource Service Center (DRSC), provides many integrated services to support the culturally diverse and low-income population in the rural north coast. These include immigration services and information people need to make decisions.
SCCIP located at the Day Workers’ Center (Legal Services on Mondays only) The mission of the Day Worker Center is to assist day laborers in Santa Cruz County to secure safe employment, develop job skills, improve wages, and become more fully engaged members of our community. The Center facilitates the employment of day laborers in a safe hiring hall space and through an organized and dignified process.
Conflict Resolution Center Santa Cruz
The Conflict Resolution Center cultivates peace in the community by providing tools, training, and a guided process for people in conflict. Our programs address conflict at all stages-from prevention to intervention-in our homes, neighborhoods, workplaces, and courts. We provide effective alternatives to litigation, hostility, and violence. Through respectful dialogue, participants create their own mutually beneficial solutions.
Monarch Services
Monarch Services offers prevention and response services to anyone experiencing domestic or intimate violence, and has offices in both Santa Cruz and Watsonville. It offers counseling, workshops, legal assistance, and operates a 24-Hour Bilingual Crisis line (Línea de crisis disponible 24 horas) 1-888-900-4232
Immigrant Legal Services of the Central Coast
Immigrant Legal Services of the Central Coast (ILSCC) provides affordable immigration-related legal services and information to the immigrant community of the Central Coast region of California, primarily Santa Cruz, San Benito, and Monterey Counties. ILSCC is a non-profit that offers a variety of services, from adjustment of status to bond hearings and detention/deportation defense.
Tenant Sanctuary
Tenant Sanctuary is a tenant education service located in Santa Cruz, that just opened its doors in April, 2019. Its mission is to empower tenants by educating them on their rights and providing the tools to pursue those rights. Tenant counselors are volunteers dedicated to the cause of tenant empowerment and education. TS also provides free public educational events on a regular basis through the help of community partners and advisors.
Undocumented Student Services
Undocumented Student Services (USS), under the umbrella of EOP, provides a robust set of services and support to ensure the graduation and retention of undocumented students at UC, Santa Cruz. The services are composed of peer mentors and an academic advisor who provide personal, academic, financial, and legal support to all UCSC undocumented students.
Watsonville Law Center
The Watsonville Law Center (WLC) provides free legal advice and information to low-income individuals on California’s Central Coast, and does not exclude anyone based on immigration status. The center focuses on legal problems with long-term impacts and solutions, such as workers’ rights, consumer rights, and access to employment.