TEDX EVENT URGES `RISING TOGETHER'
Community Foundation of Santa Cruz County sponsors event
APTOS >> The independently organized TEDxSantaCruz was held Saturday after a years-long hiatus with the theme of “Rising Together,” which is inspired by the Community Foundation of Santa Cruz County's initiative called Rise Together Santa Cruz County — a coalition of local leaders working to advance racial equity.
“Rising Together is about understanding the brilliance of people in our community who are truly building resilience, strength and power to overcome and to solve,” said Community Foundation of Santa Cruz County Executive Director Susan True at the event. “Rising Together was sparked from the coalition Rise Together, which is a group of leaders the Community Foundation brought together after the murder of George Floyd and in the early days the pandemic shutdown.”
The day-long TEDx event was held at the Crocker Theater at Cabrillo College on an intermittently rainy Saturday and featured about 25 speakers and performer
from all walks of life, chosen by a 10-person panel from more than 130 applicants, and who spoke in one of four themed sessions such as “Who we are,” “How we evolve,” “How we solve” and “How we rise together.”
After a land acknowledgment by UC Santa Cruz Community Archivist Rebecca Hernandez, and an opening talk from True, Community Action Board Chief Executive Officer MariaElena De La Garza gave an inspiring talk about the women, past and present, who are intelligent, fearless and can get things done, or “Xingonas,” called, “What Did You Call
Me? Unleashing and Redefining the Power of the Latina.”
“There is a movement by Latinas on both sides of the border who are reclaiming, reshaping and owning this word,” said De La Garza. “We have transitioned it from a `ch' to an `x' and we have infused it with a new significant meaning. It's powerful. This transition isn't just linguistic. It's cultural. It's societal and it's deeply personal.”
Following De LA Garza was Effron “Donnie” Veal, a Cabrillo College and UC Santa Cruz alumnus and program coordinator for
Rising Scholars at Cabrillo College, who spoke to his arduous decades-long journey into higher education called “From Incarceration to Inspiration: The Transformative Power of Education.”
“At 14 years old, I started to hang around with gang members but I wasn't really looking to join a gang,” said Veal. “Ten years later, I was involved in a non-fatal shooting that resulted in my receiving 34 years in the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. On the day of my sentencing, I can still see the pain in my family's face as the judge handed down the prison sentence.”
Lead researcher of the London Nelson Legacy Initiative at the Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History Luna HighJohn-Bey urged attendees to always follow a hunch.
“The work that I've done with the London Nelson Legacy Initiative has uncovered the names and identities of at least 17 people buried in unmarked graves in Evergreen Cemetery. These 17 people were previously enslaved and traveled to California before, during or
shortly after the gold rush,” said HighJohn-Bey. “The London Nelson Legacy Initiative seeks to create a full historical narrative about these 17 people and we hope to reach out to their descendants and say, `Honey, your ancestors got free. They made their way to California, struck gold, and are resting in peace in a beautiful redwood grove, in a little beach town called Santa Cruz, steps away from Pogonip and right by the beachfront.' “
During the break, attendees Sheree Storm and Kristyn Glenn discussed the variety of interesting speakers such as Veal and were looking forward to even more sessions of inspiring speakers.
“He was fascinating and it was so inspiring to hear how far he has come,” said Storm. “I feel like we often hear from the same leaders in the community, so it's really interesting to hear from people that were invisible to me until this point.”
“I am looking forward to the speakers who are talking about the climate and the environment and how that plays out locally,” said Glenn.
After the break, Founder and Executive Director of Black Surf Santa Cruz Esabella Bonner gave a talk titled “Values as Verbs: How to Be About That Action.”
“Black Surf Santa Cruz isn't just a moment. It's a movement,” said Bonner during her talk. “Values are not just words on paper but a driving force for dismantling systems that do not align with this vision. It's about disrupting power dynamics and moving beyond mere diversity statements and optics to actively building equitable systems. It's not just about having values, it's about living your values as verbs.”