The Mid-County Post - Organization of the Year: Friends of Santa Cruz County State Parks

01/06/10

Organization of the Year: Friends of Santa Cruz County State Parks

By Karen Menehan

As a child growing up in Wisconsin, Bonny Hawley spent many happy times exploring the fields, forests, dunes and shorelines of Lake Michigan.

Now, as a Californian and executive director of Friends of Santa Cruz State Parks, Hawley enjoys learning local history, exploring beaches and observing birds — when she isn't fighting to protect our state parks and beaches.

"Our quality of life depends on the quality of our state parks, because we have so many of them," Hawley said. "Over 50 percent of our coastline locally in Santa Cruz County is state parks and beaches."

Friends of Santa Cruz State Parks was founded in 1976 to support coastal state parks throughout the county. Hawley was hired into the group's top position in January 2009.

Her experience working for State Assembly members John Laird and Fred Keeley proved helpful as area state parks were threatened by the state's budget crisis this past summer. Knowledge of budgets and the state legislature has been invaluable in her new job, she said.

"It's turned out to be a much different year than I'd anticipated," she said.

She described some of the cuts facing Santa Cruz County's state parks due to California's budget woes: fewer park rangers; shuttered park visitor centers, restrooms, campgrounds and stores; fewer park aides and lifeguards.

The parks that Friends support include the Forest of Nisene Marks, Castro Adobe, Wilder Ranch, Coast Dairies, Lighthouse Field and Santa Cruz Mission Adobe State Historic Park (the Mountain Parks Foundation is in charge of activities at Henry Cowell and Big Basin State Parks.)

Along the coast, it works with the state beaches of Seacliff, New Brighton, Twin Lakes/Seabright, Manresa, Sunset, Palm and Natural Bridges.

Rallying Support

Hawley said she feels she can count on county residents for support of their parks.

When Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger announced $14.2 million in cuts to the state parks' budget in summer 2009, for example, Friends of Santa Cruz State Parks organized a rally at Natural Bridges "with three days' notice — and 600 people turned out," Hawley recalled. "It was incredible."

Her group even got a shout-out from the director of state parks during a summer press conference when Ruth Coleman praised its partnership efforts.

Now the organization is working to get the State Park Access Pass initiative on the ballot in November 2010.

If it passes, that means an $18 fee would be added to each California vehicle registration. In turn, everyone with a non-commercial California license plate would receive day-use access to all state parks.

That money would allow state parks to increase staff and start chipping away at a more-than-$1-billion backlog in needed maintenance and repairs at all California state parks, Hawley said.

Tomorrow's Stewards

Hawley worries that her kind of childhood, one including lots of time spent in nature, is quickly disappearing.

" is very important for kids, both for their education now and creating stewards for the future," she said. "Kids don't have access to the outdoors — and that's a problem."

It's a problem our state parks address, Hawley said. "Next to public schools they're the largest educator — kids go on field trips, and people learn about nature, culture and history from state park interpreters."

More than 327,000 visitors, including thousands of schoolchildren, attend and participate in more than 4,000 free educational programs funded by Friends of Santa Cruz State Parks each year, according to the group's website.

During Ranch Kids Days at Wilder Ranch State Park, for example, third-graders don caps and vests before riding in a circa-1909 horse-drawn wagon down to the ranch, where they grind corn, milk cows and watch a blacksmith work. They chop vegetables, make soup on a woodstove and churn butter—and they get to eat what they cooked.

This kind of educational program "exposes kids to history in a hands-on way, which is a very effective way to learn," Hawley said.

If Friends of Santa Cruz State Parks didn't have to spend so much time and effort fighting to save the parks, it would be able expand those types of programs and bring them to more kids, she adds.

The variety of the county's state parks attracts people with many interests, and Hawley said their support will continue to be vital.

"State parks preserve important habitats—redwoods, wetlands, coastlines—and important cultural and historical places," said Hawley. "A lot of those facilities have been preserved through volunteer activities and people really fighting to save them—and it feel like we need to save them again."