Santa Cruz County
View our NON PROFIT WISH LIST to see how you can help different organizations. It changes monthly.
You may not be able to help the whole world, but you can make a difference in your own community. --Elizabeth P. Carter
See the list below of non-profits that could use more volunteers! We believe strongly in families giving back to their community by volunteering their time and making donations. Families can make a difference in their community without it necessarily being a big time commitment or expense.
We encourage parents to set an example for their children by demonstrating different ways to give, through donating toys and clothes or by helping serve meals during the holidays. You will be teaching your children empathy and compassion. Below are ways parents and kids can give back to our community.
Click here to submit your own.
The Surfrider Foundation is a nonprofit environmental organization dedicated to the protection and enjoyment of the world's oceans, waves and beaches, for all people, through Conservation, Activism, Research and Education (C.A.R.E.).
Beach Clean ups and water sampling are great ways you as a family can do your part in helping our beaches where we live.
CardsThatGive.org directs you to dozens of effective non-profit organizations that sell greeting cards to help fund their charitable work.
During the first half of the year, CardsThatGive.org features non-profits that produce general greeting cards. In August, cards that celebrate Christmas and other winter holidays begin to appear on the site, and more organizations are added each month as their cards become available.
Currently our site includes more than 100 non-profit organizations and a gallery of nearly 200 holiday cards.
Every U.S. organization that we include is a 501(c)3 charity. In addition, if the non-profit has been evaluated by Charity Navigator, a respected charity watchdog organization, the non-profit must have received at least two stars out of a possible four.
Listing on CardsThatGive.org is free to qualified charities.
Charity Navigator, America's premier independent charity evaluator, works to advance a more efficient and responsive philanthropic marketplace by evaluating the financial health of America's largest charities. Go here to get information on charities you are considering donating to.
The mission of the First 5 Santa Cruz County is to ensure that family-friendly services and education are available so that each child reaches the fifth year of life healthy, ready and able to learn, and emotionally well developed.
First 5 Santa Cruz County was established by the Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors on December 8, 1998 by urgency ordinance to ensure that family-friendly services and education are available so that each child reaches the fifth year of life healthy, ready and able to learn, and emotionally well developed. | |
The Board appointed nine Commission members between January and November 1999. Since then, the Commission has been engaged in an intensive planning process icluding dozens of community discussions, focus groups, task forces, surveys, analysis of existing data and review of literature on best and promising practices. We are committed to involving community members as well as professionals working with young children and their families. | |
The purpose of the NLCS is to serve assistance to low income families with children who are homeless, chemically addicted or both. Shelter, addiction treatment, re-entry education, and other services are provided to allow these individuals the ability to become productive and responsible members of the social mainstream.
Problems of addictive behavior are at the heart of many social ills. Economic hardship is often the result of untreated alcoholism, drug abuse, gambling, compulsive spending, and in some cases troubled relationships. Many children who grew up in alcololic or otherwise dysfunctional families find themselves repeating these patterns as adults. NLCS seeks to equip those suffering from substance abuse or self-destructive behavior with the tools to break out of this cycle of pain. Recovery involves rigorous honesty and acceptance of responsibility. The reward is a New Beginning.
SPIN Parents of children with special needs may feel isolated and overwhelmed with the medical, emotional, financial, educational and social issues they face as they raise their child. SPIN is a non-profit parent-to-parent support and information network serving parents, guardians and families in Santa Cruz and San Benito Counties who have a child or children with special needs of any age.
We Offer:
Second Harvest provides food and basic necessities to 43,000 people a month including children, seniors and working poor families trying to make ends meet. We do this through a network of 160 non-profit agencies and programs.
Due to the generosity of our community and food industry partners, Second Harvest receives $8 million worth of food donations a year. We distribute this food - more than 40% is fresh fruits and vegetables - to our neighbors in need. Every dollar you donate provides food for five meals.
It takes a collaborative effort of local individuals, groups and organizations to feed those in need. Second Harvest has a network of 160 member agencies and programs in Santa Cruz and San Benito Counties through which we distribute two-thirds of the food we collect. We partner with local growers to receive surplus produce at a low cost, local media to communicate the programs and services Second Harvest offers and to promote community involvement, and businesses to help fund our efforts.
