Welcome to Season 2 of Good News Santa Cruz! 

We’re kicking off this season with our Top 5 Good News Nuggets, including a brand-new local event: the Santa Cruz Mile. This new event, happening Sunday, March 15, is the first of its kind in Santa Cruz County, featuring a 1-mile race route that goes from the Santa Cruz Wharf, up Pacific Avenue and through the heart of Downtown Santa Cruz. The Santa Cruz Mile is geared toward a wide range of participants, from walkers to elite runners. This is a road race for everyone! We’re lucky to sit down with organizers Rich Larson and Tim Schenone to get all the details on the Santa Cruz Mile. 

Register for the Santa Cruz Mile: https://raceroster.com/events/2026/112869/the-santa-cruz-mile

Learn more about the race and how to volunteer: https://www.santacruzmile.com/

Richard Larson and Tim Schenone are the organizers of the Santa Cruz Mile.  Richard is the former Race Director of the Santa Cruz Triathlon. Tim is the owner of Santa Cruz Running Company.

The holidays are here! For many people, the holidays bring a mix of excitement, nostalgia and the joy of gathering with friends and family. This time of year naturally sparks thoughts about traditions, those comforting rituals that people look forward to and that often grow and evolve over time. Some may already have cherished traditions they can’t wait to revisit, while others might be hoping to start new ones. 

On this episode Good News Santa Cruz, we explore our Top 5 Holiday Traditions in Santa Cruz! Give it a listen to learn about Santa Cruz Shakespeare’s holiday show, the Felton Holiday Market, a special holiday light show in Watsonville and ways to give back. 

• Find out more about Santa Cruz Shakespeare’s production of A Christmas Carol: santacruzshakespeare.org
• Felton Holiday Market, December 14 from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the Felton Covered Bridge Park
• Sparky’s Holiday Lights: sparksholidaylights.com
• Learn more about the Volunteer Center: https://scvolunteercenter.org/
• Check out Friends of Santa Cruz State Parks ParkStore: https://thatsmypark.org/shop/

We are fortunate to live in Santa Cruz County, a place of extraordinary natural beauty. And now, thanks to a designation by President Barack Obama before he left office, Santa Cruz County has one more natural jewel in its crown, the Cotoni-Coast Dairies National Monument, in Davenport, Santa Cruz County’s first and only national monument. The national monument designation will protect the land in perpetuity...as in, FOREVER! Combined with the 32 State Parks and Beaches of Santa Cruz and coastal San Mateo counties, we've got one more reason to smile, one more reason to be proud of where we live. 

In this episode, we talk with Katy Peterson, of the Santa Cruz Mountains Trail Stewardship, to share with us their role in how visitors can access and enjoy this backyard treasure. Plan your visit today! 

Summer is here! Hosts Paula Maxfield and Alex Baker sit down with Event Santa Cruz's Matthew Swinnerton - the original local influencer. Check out our latest blast of good-ness to learn about what's happening with the world of local music in Santa Cruz County (and beyond!) this summer. 

Check out the Midtown Summer Block Party Schedule.

Learn more about Legends Live & Local with Jane Wiedlin from the Go Go's on July 17. 

About Matthew Swinnerton and Event Santa Cruz

Matthew Swinnerton started Event Santa Cruz in 2013 as a monthly lightning-talk event series featuring local entrepreneurs and community leaders. Shop owners and chefs, mentors and musicians, athletes, artists, and everyone in between shared the ideas that inspire them, the rocky but rewarding road of entrepreneurship, and that special something that keeps them going.

Event Santa Cruz grew swiftly beyond the bounds of your typical event-hosting company and now serves as a multimedia outpost for all things local. In 2015, Event Santa Cruz adopted The NEXTies awards from Santa Cruz NEXT, bringing a whole new community and a big new energy to Event Santa Cruz. They developed new themed events—like the beloved Big Summer Block Party—and digital marketing avenues to promote Santa Cruz businesses.

Through social media, email engagement, collaborative partnerships, video interviews, radio—and, yes, live events!—Event Santa Cruz keeps turning up the volume on how to celebrate Santa Cruz innovation and entrepreneurship.

Our newest blast of Santa Cruz good-ness is focused on a topic many of us can relate to: Parenting.

The thing about parenting is that it just doesn’t come with an instruction manual. Many of us, kinda, well, wing it. But it doesn’t have to be that way.  

If you could use a confidence boost and some tips to put in your parenting toolkit, this episode just may be your ticket to parenting self-care.

In this episode, we sit down with First 5 Santa Cruz County executive director David Brody, and Program Manager Yesenia Gomez Carrillo, about our local Triple P Positive Parenting Program.

Learn more about Triple P: https://www.first5scc.org/triple-p-parenting

As we move through the holiday season, it’s an ideal time for reflection and acknowledgment of the special people in our lives. So, for Episode 2 we’re focusing on gifts with meaning. We sit down with Friends of Santa Cruz State Parks Executive Director Bonny Hawley, along with Philanthropy and Sales Director Kat Bailey, to learn about their unique Tribute Table program. Good News Santa Cruz is available right now, so why not give it a listen? 

If you are interested in a Tribute Table visit the Friends of Santa Cruz State Parks website.

Read more about tribute tables with this article on Hilltromper.com.

About Friends of Santa Cruz State Parks

Established in 1976, Friends of Santa Cruz State Parks (Friends) is a vital partner with California State Parks, creatively working to ensure our cherished local parks and beaches are thriving and available to all. Friends’ innovative and collaborative community partnership provides support and investment for education, equity and inclusion, conservation, facilities improvements, historic preservation and cultural events. Friends currently operates a robust online ParkStore offering nature- and history-themed merchandise for sale to benefit local parks and beaches. Friends also operates ParkStores at Natural Bridges, New Brighton, Santa Cruz Mission, Seacliff and Wilder Ranch. Learn more at www.ThatsMyPark.org or via Facebook, Instagram, X and YouTube.

Charles Pasternak sits down with Good News Santa Cruz hosts Paula Maxfield and Alex Baker to talk about Santa Cruz Shakespeare’s phenomenal 2024 Season and why you won’t want to miss the Fall production of The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams. Learn more about Santa Cruz Shakespeare: santacruzshakespeare.org 

About Charles Pasternak

Charles Pasternak is Santa Cruz Shakespeare’s Artistic Director.  His tenure as Artistic Director began in 2023, before which he served as Artistic Director of The Porters of Hellsgate Theatre Co in Los Angeles for over fifteen years. He has had a wide-ranging career as an actor and director at theatres across this country including American Players Theatre, Alabama Shakespeare Festival, Indiana Repertory Theatre, Clarence Brown Theatre, The Denver Center, The Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey, The Shakespeare Center of Los Angeles, three seasons with The Shakespeare Festival of St. Louis and four with Shakespeare Santa Cruz.

From the redwoods to the beach and all the places in between, Santa Cruz County is beaming with stories that will make you smile. Welcome to the inaugural season of Good News Santa Cruz! We'll be sharing some of our favorite gems from the arts and culture scene, green living, open space and state parks, as well as simple ways to give back. Tap into a dose of Santa Cruz County goodness with Good News Santa Cruz. Listen today!