A Letter from Our Executive Director

How We're Helping Our Community Right Now

Hi,

I'm reaching out today to send our best wishes from the team here at Mountain Bikers of Santa Cruz and to let you know how we are adapting to this crisis. We sincerely hope that you and yours are healthy, secure, and in good spirits during this especially challenging time.

The Covid-19 crisis presents MBOSC with challenges and setbacks similar to those being faced by many other organizations. Despite these challenges or, perhaps, because of them, we are as committed as ever to our mission of enhancing our public outdoor spaces through community-based trail stewardship.

We would like to share how we are adapting to these challenging circumstances and provide some ideas on how we can collectively beat this pandemic and get back to the trails.

What MBOSC is doing:

• We’re pushing out social distancing trail use guidelines for all trail users, and sharing this info with outdoor recreation and stewardship organizations across the country.
  • We’re in constant contact with land managers and other recreation groups to learn about best practices as they’re developed and implemented.
  • We’re also sharing information from local land managers on access restrictions and closures from the City of Santa Cruz, the Santa Clara County, CA State Parks, and other local land managers.

• We’re doubling down on our digital presence and engagement and are creating new virtual events to bring the educational and social aspects of MBOSC right into your home.
  • The classroom lecture portion of our Trail Academy program, previously only available in-person, is going online. This is a unique opportunity to learn the in’s and out’s of trail design, construction, and maintenance - live from our team of professional trail builders. Sign up here.

• Though our professional trail crew and our trail volunteers have had all work suspended during shelter in place, we are proactively planning future trail work today. This includes:
  • Preparing for the construction of new trails at San Vicente Redwoods
  • Working on trail design at Wilder Ranch
  • Finalizing the plans for asphalt pumptracks in both Watsonville and Santa Cruz

• We are also staying engaged in the City of Santa Cruz’s Parks and Recreation Master Plan, the California State Parks Roads and Trails Plan for Castle Rock, the UCSC Long Range Development Plan process, and other emerging public planning processes that will impact trail access regionally.
• We’re looking ahead and refining our volunteer safety practices to place an increased focus on mitigating the spread of contagions so that we can confidently get back to work on the trails once the shelter in place is lifted. Our crews will be back to work on the Saratoga to Skyline trail and finishing the Chanticleer pumptrack rebuild as soon as public health officials allow.
• We are staying engaged with local advocacy initiatives, and are actively sharing opportunities for public buy-in.
  • We just finished a community outreach campaign around the second phase of the public comment and meeting period for the BLM’s Cotoni-Coast Dairies management planning process, and will keep our community informed and aware of opportunities to engage in the upcoming third and final phase of this process.

• We’ve pulled together a full list of books and podcasts that are great ways to learn more about trail stewardship and advocacy. This is a great time to learn more about the details of what goes into planning and managing trails.
• If there are other things you would like to see MBOSC do to support our community during this time, please reach out and let us know.

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We are striving to do all that we can in the fight against coronavirus. This isn’t someone else's battle, but our collective battle as citizens and organizations. We hope that we can be a good example for other organizations and individuals by, first and foremost, doing all that we can to fight the spread of coronavirus and, secondarily, doing everything we can to keep the wheels of progress turning and economic engines firing. Here are some things you may consider doing to help beat the pandemic so that we can heal, rebuild, and get back on the trails.

• Please follow your local shelter in place directives (Santa Cruz’s and Santa Clara’s orders hyperlinked here). This is the most basic but also the most powerful way in which we can personally contribute to halting the spread of Covid-19.
• Recreate Safely. If you are venturing out on the trails, first make sure that the open space you are visiting is open and, if so, please try to follow these guidelines to protect yourself and other trail users and to limit potential impact to our already-strained healthcare system.
• Donate. The Federal Government has just created additional incentives to give to non-profit organizations. For taxpayers who don’t itemize deductions, a new $300 deduction has been established. This is a big deal, and means that if you donate $300 to a charitable non-profit, you can write off the entire donation on your 2020 taxes without itemizing. For individuals who itemize, the cap on charitable giving deductions has been raised from 50% to 100% of adjusted gross income.

If you are going to make one donation please contribute to an organization directly contributing to the battle against coronavirus. Nothing will help out the economy, the health of our friends, families, communities, and humanity more directly than ending the spread of this virus. The same goes for trail development and maintenance. Here is a list of organizations on the front lines of the fight against Corona.

• With our current trail projects on hold, our organization’s income has been severely impacted. If you are going to make a second donation, consider supporting MBOSC so that we can hit the ground running when shelter in place is lifted. You can donate at www.mbosc.org/donate, or contribute to our online trails fundraiser and custom Caletti give away for a chance to win a custom bike frame while supporting MBOSC. Now’s also a great time to sign up or renew your MBOSC membership if you’re not currently a member.
• Take care of yourself and your people. These are uniquely challenging times. Please remember to nurture yourself and your community so that we can all maintain the fortitude to beat this thing.

While global health ranks as our collective priority, the importance of parks, open spaces and trails to our mental health has become even more clear during this pandemic. As the built environment is shut down, people are increasingly seeking to connect with our natural world as a fundamental source of healing, security, and wellness. We’re proud to see trails we build and maintain providing relief to those in need, and look forward to the time we can get back out there with everyone. In the meantime we are wishing everyone health and happiness.

Be well,

Matt De Young

Executive Director