Racing with Humans (and Dogs) in Santa Cruz

I attend a lot of community events. Every once in a while, I find an event that shows off our community in all its glory.

This past weekend, I participated in the Volunteer Center’s Human Race and it reminded me of just how fabulous Santa Cruz is. (Okay, I know I’m getting carried away with booster-ism but I guess that’s part of my job.)

I’ll start with the obvious: Thousands of generous people showed up to raise money for groups and causes.  We are community that is full of people willing to give time and money to improve the lives of people in our community – especially people with challenges.  I know other communities have events like this but the magnitude of participation for a community of our size is notable.  It seemed like at least a couple of thousand people participated.

But that’s just the beginning. Santa Cruz has literally hundreds of nonprofit organizations — charitable, environmental, political, social — and dozens of these groups were on display at the starting line. Again, the array represented in the Human Race is impressive — an array one might expect in a bigger city, but not in one of the state’s smaller counties.

Another thing I loved was the diversity of our community visible all in one place.  We all know there is ethnic diversity in our community at large. But there are far too few community events where the Latino and Anglo participation are roughly equal to those groups’ population percentages.  The Human Race appeared to me to be a nice exception to the norm.

And the diversity went far beyond ethnicity.  There were lots of seniors, lots of children, lots of young adults and lots of us from the middle ages.  And lots of folks with disabilities — it was amazing to see how many folks in wheelchairs or on crutches and canes made the walk.

Then there was the overall Santa Cruziness of the crowd. Lots of people in odd costumes.  (A group wearing aprons and carrying soup ladles stood out for me.) Lots of people with dogs (and dogs in costumes).  Taiko drummers, a marimba band and a joyous ukulele band.  Big groups of UCSC students reminding us what a big part of our community they are. (And UCSC loaned its facility on Delaware Avenue for registration, the start/finish line and the post-race barbecue.) And then there were all the runners, bikers and surfers reminding us how integral “outdoor recreation” is to our community life.

Of course, seeing all this was inevitable, because the Human Race route went along West Cliff Drive.  My booster-ism emerges again as I claim that few, if any, communities can claim to have a Human Race course that  is more spectacular than this.

And then there were the little stories I came upon. Shari is a local resident who’s been experiencing some challenges in her neighborhood with homelessness.  Instead of turning her against homeless people, the situation caused her to volunteer to raise funds through the Human Race for the Homeless Services Center (the group that I walked for) and to explore ways she could have a positive impact on the challenge of homelessness.

There was my old friend, Pat Clark, who after battling cancer and surviving it, back on the volunteer front lines directing traffic for the Human Race and serving on the Board of Directors of the Volunteer Center. 

Karen Delaney, who has been leading our local Volunteer Center for what seems like decades, told me her favorite story of the day. She set her purse down under a tree as the volunteer team was setting up for the Human Race early in the morning. She proceeded to move around the event for a few hours and then realized she had left her purse somewhere.  She remembered where she left it and returned to find it intact right under that same tree.  Literally thousands of people had walked near that purse that morning, and yet nobody took it or bothered it.

Way to go, Santa Cruz.

By the way, I received some kind words after my first posting last week. Thank you. I also received a couple of suggestions for things I might write more about in relation to Santa Cruz city government and politics.  Please keep those suggestions and comments coming.  I promise my next post will be more about the challenges and issues of the City Council.