By Gabrielle Gillette | ggillette@santacruzsentinel.com

PUBLISHED: April 18, 2026 at 4:47 PM PDT

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SANTA CRUZ — Santa Cruz’s Earth Day celebration brought community members from around Santa Cruz County together on a spring Saturday afternoon for a day of environmental education and fun in Downtown Santa Cruz.

The annual event saw live music from SambaDá, face painting, a photo booth and an assortment of educational activities from local organizations supporting the environment, such as a collaborative flower crown-making booth from the Santa Cruz Children’s Museum of Discovery and the Santa Cruz Museum of Natural History.

The booth had flower scraps that were donated from local flower shops and sourced naturally from around town for attendees to wrap around wire and wear on their heads, said Jaime LaFollette, program and outreach director at the Santa Cruz Museum of Discovery.

“We did the same activity last year,” LaFollette said. “We were looking for something that was fun for all ages and open-ended and encouraged creativity and discovery and engagement with our natural world.”

Jair Torres, a public outreach coordinator with the Santa Cruz Museum of Natural History, said he hoped the booth not only raised awareness for local museums, but also engaged the community with local plants and science.

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  Sarah Forsberg, owner of Sarah Sews Crafts, sold her eco-friendly thrift flips at the festival. (Gabrielle Gillette — Santa Cruz Sentinel)
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  Surfrider Foundation volunteers Lauryn Cartagine, left, Lauren Kennedy, middle, and Dave Robinson taught attendees about ocean conservation with diagrams about beach pollution and water bacteria. (Gabrielle Gillette — Santa Cruz Sentinel)
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  Santa Cruz community members lined Cooper Street playing games and learning about the environment from local organizations. (Gabrielle Gillette — Santa Cruz Sentinel)

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Sarah Forsberg, owner of Sarah Sews Crafts, sold her eco-friendly thrift flips at the festival. (Gabrielle Gillette — Santa Cruz Sentinel)

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The event had over 50 booths overall, consisting of nonprofits, government organizations and companies that align with the mission of being eco-friendly and zero waste, said Tiffany Martinez, departmental communications officer for Santa Cruz County. Organizers estimated seeing anywhere from 4,000 to 6,000 attendees, she added.

“This is an opportunity for us to meet people where they’re at in a fun and tangible way, so they can learn new tips and tricks on how to compost, how to sort their trash or even how to shop sustainably and that’s ultimately the goal we have here — to educate the community,” Martinez said.

Adults and kids of all ages walked around Cooper Street and Pacific Avenue decked out in flowers with handfuls of educational pamphlets as they learned about ocean conservation, climate change and pollution.

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  Roland Saher, left, and Pauline Seales with Santa Cruz Climate Action Network, taught attendees about the environmental impacts of the food they consume. (Gabrielle Gillette — Santa Cruz Sentinel)
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  The Santa Cruz Climate Action Network booth displayed a patchwork quilt featuring drawings of local kids’ favorite sea creatures. (Gabrielle Gillette — Santa Cruz Sentinel)
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  Band SambaDá soundtracked the festival from the stage at Abbott Square Market. (Gabrielle Gillette — Santa Cruz Sentinel)

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Roland Saher, left, and Pauline Seales with Santa Cruz Climate Action Network, taught attendees about the environmental impacts of the food they consume. (Gabrielle Gillette — Santa Cruz Sentinel)

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One booth, the Santa Cruz Climate Action Network, had a display that used small cardboard boxes filled with different weighted materials like rocks or rice, demonstrating the different levels of carbon dioxide produced by different food, with lead being used for beef — the heaviest box.

The booth also had a patchwork quilt with drawings from local kids’ favorite sea creatures and information about the impacts of offshore oil drilling.

“This is part of increasing the community’s awareness,” said Pauline Seales, organizer of the Santa Cruz Climate Action Network. “It (climate change) is not going to be solved totally by government, it has to be the people as well.”

Environmentally-friendly clothing and jewelry vendors also made an appearance at the event, talking about the importance of shopping small and sustainably.

Santa Cruz resident Sarah Forsberg, owner of Sarah Sews Crafts, brought her upcycled designs to the Earth Day celebration. She upcycles fabrics such as bedsheets or curtains into bags and adds designs from thrifted T-shirts onto other articles of thrifted clothing like jackets and flannel shirts.

“Go thrifting. Everybody should be going thrifting,” Forsberg said. “There’s too much clothing in the whole world that’s already made. You should just use something that’s already made and repurpose it.”

Santa Cruz’s chapter of the Surfrider Foundation, an organization dedicated to protecting the world’s oceans, had a visual display of the most common items found at their monthly beach clean ups, said volunteer Lauryn Cartagine. She said the organization typically sees cigarette butts, plastic cutlery, styrofoam containers and deflated balloons along beaches.

Cartagine said she hoped the festival helped people connect to a cause that they cared about, whether it be sea animal protection or pollution reduction.

“I just hope that they will be able to take away an appreciation for what’s out there and a desire to keep it safe in whatever way that looks like for them,” she said.