fundraising

Resurrection Church Hosts Chili Cook-off

February 15, 2017 by Seb Frey

Resurrection Church will Host a “The Great Chili Cook-off” this Friday, February 17! This fun Chili Cook-off is sponsored by local churches with all proceeds going to provide showers for mid-county homeless. They’ll have a chili tasting with live bands and dancing. The menu includes all kinds of chili, cornbread, desserts, and beverages.

This will be a great family event – adult tickets are just $20, and children under 12 are free. They’ll also have blind taste tests by celebrity judges, with categories including beef chili, non-beef chili, and vegetarian chili. You can even stuff the ballot boxes for the People’s Choice Awards – they’re selling extra ballots for just $1 each. There will be special honors for the most spirited chili team!

The event starts at 6:00 PM and will wrap up around 8:30 PM. This event sounds like a lot of fun, and should be a way to get a great bowl of chili or two! Put in on your calendar and show up for a great family night and help out our large homeless population in the mid-county area.

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Aptos Library Book Sale February 18

February 15, 2017 by Seb Frey

Come on down and check out the Aptos Library Book Sale February 18! Explore their wide ranging collection of tomes from fiction and children’s books, audiobooks and CDs. Their non-fiction offerings include a rainbow of subjects from A-Z: cookbooks, gardening, health & personal development, poetry, and travel among a wide variety of other subject subjects. Hardbacks will be sold for $2 and paperbacks for $1.

The sale is organized by the The Aptos Chapter of Friends of the Santa Cruz Public Libraries (Aptos FSCPL). Aptos FSCPL is a nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting the Aptos branch of the Santa Cruz Public Libraries, and all proceeds from the sale will go to support the Aptos Library and their various programs.

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Team Coco Celebrates Inaugural Season

January 3, 2017 by Seb Frey

The Live Like Coco Foundation, a Santa Cruz-based non-profit organization dedicated to helping kids grow up healthy and with opportunities to pursue their dreams, has announced the creation of Team Coco — a group of athletes who walk, run and fundraise together to improve the lives of all kids in our community.

Launching in January 2017, Team Coco has set a goal of raising $50,000 to benefit the Live Like Coco Foundation’s Birthday Books From Coco program and other non- profit organizations that support kids and families.

The team hosts a kickoff meeting on Tuesday January 10 at 6 p.m. at the Santa Cruz Running Company at 1664 Soquel Drive, Suite B in Santa Cruz. Registration is $100 and open to adults of all fitness levels interested in making a difference in Santa Cruz County. Kids aged 12 and over may participate if accompanied by a parent or guardian.

Team Coco’s coach will create individual training programs for each participant, designed to get every participant across the finish line of a 5K, 10K, half or full marathon by the end of the season in June 2017. To reach its fundraising goal, Team Coco’s members will work together on a number of community events, including a yard sale, a spaghetti dinner, a fun run and more.

The LiveLikeCoco Foundation is a 501(c)(3) charitable organization established in 2016 in memory of 12-year-old Colette “Coco” Pavao Lazenby. For more information on the LiveLikeCoco Foundation and Team Coco please visit www.livelikecoco.com.

Media Contact:
Aaron Lazenby
415-595-5960
aaron.lazenby@gmail.com

Cash Mob at Caroline’s Thrift Shop on Tuesday

December 15, 2015 by Seb Frey

Cash Mob Aptos

The good folks of the <a href="https://www.facebook click this.com/groups/aptosia/” target=”_blank”>Aptosia Facebook group are organizing a Cash Mob at Caroline’s Thrift Shop on Tuesday, December 15th 2015. It’s a great way to do a little holiday shopping for unique one-of-a-kind and high-quality items such as you won’t find anywhere, and support a great local non-profit business…and hang out with a lot of cool people in our community at the same time!

The Mob starts at 4 PM and ends at 6 – but come early! After mobbing Caroline’s, the group will walk over to Aptos BBQ (it’s right next door!) to enjoy some drink specials for Cash Mob participants…and the folks from Aptos Street BBQ will also donate some of the proceeds to Caroline’s as well!

Cash Mob 2015 Flyer

Mar Vista School Needs Your Support!

December 2, 2015 by Seb Frey

Sponsor the Mar Vista Read-a-thon!

Mar Vista School Needs Your Support with their 2015 Read-a-thon! This is the second year that Mar Vista Elementary School in Aptos is running a read-a-thon fundraiser. With only a few days left to go, the school is well short of it’s $35,000 fundraising goal.

Mar Vista is a California Distinguished School and is renown in the community for its amazing community – just like Aptos itself. Hundreds of Aptos kids attend the school, and thousands of Aptosians themselves attended Mar Vista Elementary school at some time in their lives.

If you know a child at Mar Vista Elementary School, you can go to this web page to look them up and make a donation and become that child’s supporter in the fundraiser.

Even if you don’t have a child currently enrolled at Mar Vista, won’t you consider making a donation to the read-a-thon, to help them reach their fundraising goal? You can make a donation either as an individual, or make a donation as a business to have your business featured on the fundraising page! It’s a great way to log in a tax-deductible expense before the end of the year.

We thank you for your support!

World’s Biggest Garage Sale Returns

April 22, 2015 by Seb Frey

The World’s Biggest Garage Sale returns again this year to Twin Lakes Church. It will be held on Saturday, April 25 from 8 AM until 2 PM, and proceeds go to benefit the Second Harvest Food Bank. It’s best to come early because the best stuff will go quickly, and the parking lot will fill up.

If you haven’t been to this yet, you owe it to yourself to at least stop by and check out this cultural phenomenon. The claim of world’s biggest garage sale may be a bit of hyperbole – or maybe not! It certainly has an amazing selection of just about everything you’d expect to see in a garage sale, and a whole lot more:

Clothing
Furniture
Housewares
Appliances
Gardening tools
Linens
Bedding
Books
Movies
Flat-screen TVs
Seasonal and decorative items
Artwork
Collectibles
Jewelry
Sporting goods
Rare, one-of-a-kind items

They also sell fresh hot coffee and a variety of baked goods to keep your fortified as you look hunt among the treasures you’ll find there.

Restrooms for the Polo Grounds

April 8, 2015 by Seb Frey

The Polo Grounds Regional Park is used by hundreds of families from Aptos and throughout Santa Cruz county. Countless baseball and soccer games are held in this park, and for years now, there haven’t been proper restrooms for the Polo Grounds. The only facilities available have been some chemical “port-a-potty” toilets. Parents or children needing something cleaner have had to rely on the generosity of nearby businesses and their restrooms when the need arose.

Plans have been in the works for years to rectify this situation, and now the project is coming together. The Cabrillo Host Lions Club (which meets in Aptos Village Park) has teamed up with the Santa Cruz County Parks Department to make the undertaking a reality. They have launched a new web site, GoGoPolo.org, to serve as a focal point for the fundraising efforts which will make this possible.

GoGo Polo Kickoff Ceremony

Join the Cabrillo Host Lions, Friends of Santa Cruz County Parks, and the Santa Cruz County Parks Department at Polo Grounds County Park on Friday, April 17th at 11:00 AM. The ceremony will be held in the spot where the new building will be built, between the baseball field and the parking lot.

The plan calls for the construction of a building for restrooms which will also house a concession stand. Local businesses have already pledged to provide goods and services. Santa Cruz County itself has pledged approximately $70,000 for the project – but at least an additional $267,000 will be needed to complete the project.

The Cabrillo Host Lions Club is seeking volunteers to help with their fundraising efforts – and of course sponsors, both personal and corporate. Please view their fundraising page and make a donation, and spread the word to anyone you know who may be in a position to help.

See also: GoGo Polo Facebook Page

3rd Annual Aptos Little League Golf Tournament

March 25, 2015 by Seb Frey

The 3rd Annual Aptos Little League Golf Tournament will held this coming Sunday, April 26th at the Spring Hills Golf Course in Watsonville. Entry fees are:

$400 per Foursome
$175 for Parent + Child
$125 for Individuals
Dinner Only $25 Adult, $10 Child

There will be no tickets available at the door, so register early! The festivities include a putting contest (sponsored by Yogurtland!), a silent auction, and music performed by the Aptos Junior High Rock Band.

You can register for the tournament using this link.

St. Andrew Preschool Annual Fundraiser

March 2, 2015 by Seb Frey

It’s time again for the annual St. Andrew Preschool Annual Fundraiser. This is the school’s single biggest fundraiser of the year, and consists of two parts: a rummage/bake sale, and a raffle.

The rummage and bake sale will be held on Saturday, March 7th from 8:00 AM until 2:00 PM, and will be held in the St. Andrew Church parking lot. They will be selling clothing for the whole family, toys, books, electronics, household items, furniture, and much more – including, of course, a wide variety of baked goods and yummy treats.

If you have any items you can donate to the rummage sale, please call 831-688-7095.

The raffle will be held on Saturday, April 25 from 11 AM until 1:00 PM at Seascape Park. Tickets are $2.50 each, or 5 tickets for $10. Prizes have been donated from a number of local companies, including:

Gilroy Gardens
Monterey Plaza Hotel
Children’s Discovery Museum of San Jose
Happy Hollow
Precision Wellness Center
Shadowbrook
…and many more

Raffle can be purchased directly from St. Andrew Cooperative Preschool, or you may contact Sebastian Frey to buy tickets.

Santa Cruz Children’s Museum of Discovery Grand Opening

November 19, 2014 by Seb Frey

I attended the Santa Cruz Children’s Museum of Discovery Grand Opening and Ribbon Cutting Ceremony on November 15 2014. I shot some video of both the ribbon cutting and a variety of the exhibits…which you could hardly see, because there were so many people there. In fact, they counted over 2,000 people through the doors on launch day!

Here on this page you will find two separate videos – the first is sort of a montage of the opening day, taking you on a tour of the museum as it was on launch day.

Santa Cruz Children’s Museum of Discovery Opening Day Montage

The second video is the ribbon cutting ceremony, with remarks from Patrice Keet, the museum’s founder, as well as Sam Storey, the Mayor of Capitola.

Ribbon Cutting Ceremony

The museum is off to a great start, and it has already become the new hot spot in town for kid’s birthday parties, with dozens already scheduled within the next several months. Hundreds of people have now also purchased memberships to the museum as well.

Even though the museum is off to an amazing start, it’s still very much version 1.0. The museum is in need of donations: cash, materials for new exhibits, and skilled help to run and augment the museum. I you can volunteer money, equipment, or skills, please get in touch with the museum staff to let them know what you can offer.