The Hub for Sustainable Living

09/03/2026

Tenant Sanctuary

our updated hours as of September 2026🦋

08/25/2026

Hard Core Compost

We're hosting a class all about compost at our new Riverside Gardens site! Come join us on August 26th at 6:30pm! See you there 🐜🪱🌱

08/25/2026

Santa Cruz Guerilla Drive-In

A reminder!: Friday August 28th at sunset under the Soquel Avenue bridge on the sandy bank of the river: all are invited to the third screening of the 2026 Santa Cruz Guerilla Drive-In season!!

Imagine a first-contact movie where the stakes aren't about surviving a war, but surviving our own instinct to destroy what we don't understand. _Arrival_ (adapted from Ted Chiang's "Story of Your Life") is a masterclass in intellectual sci-fi. Instead of lasers, Dr. Louise Banks uses grammar and syntax to save the world. It’s a quiet, visually stunning, and emotionally devastating masterpiece that proves language might just be the most powerful tool we have. If you haven't seen it yet, prepare to look at time and memory completely differently.

URBAN WASTELAND LOCATION (ACTUALLY ALONG THE RIVER MORE LIKE AN OASIS): from downtown, head south on Soquel Avenue. At Riverside, by the Royal Taj, turn right. Follow the path down to the Sandy area under the bridge.

NOTE: let's take care of the spot and pack it in pack it out. When the film is over please be respectful of the neighbors when leaving and use library voices.

PLUS thrilling short films, an intermission, great company, and a guaranteed good time!

BRING blankets, pillows, anything you need to be comfortable (consider a low folding chair that does not block others from seeing the screen), friends, snacks, snacks to share. Donations to support the project are more than welcome but no one turned away for lack of funds (NOTAFLOF for real!).

SANTA CRUZ GUERILLA DRIVE-IN is an outdoor movie theater under the stars that springs up in the fields and industrial wastelands. Beyond showing great free movies and bring a broad community together, part of our mission is helping reclaim public space and transforming our urban environment

07/25/2026

Santa Cruz Guerilla Drive-In

Friday July 31st at sunset under the Soquel Ave bridge on the sandy bank of the river - all are invited to the second screening of the 2026 Santa Cruz Guerilla Drive-In season!

“Summer Wars” - In this 2009 animated film, a rogue AI threatens to take over and dismantle OZ: a virtual reality world that the entire real world heavily depends on. When the threat becomes existential for humanity, a family bands together to combat the AI but it takes the support of an entire populace to fight back.

SAME URBAN WASTELAND LOCATION: From downtown, head south on Soquel Avenue. At Riverside, by the Royal Taj, turn right. Follow the path down to the sandy area under the bridge.

Note: Let’s take care of the spot and pack-it-in-pack-it-out. When the film is over please be respectful of the neighbors when leaving and use library voices.

PLUS thrilling short films, an intermission, great company and a guaranteed good time!

BRING blankets, pillows, anything you need to be comfortable in foldy metal chairs indoors, friends, snacks to share. Donations to support the project are more than welcome - and notaflof* so not expected!. (*no one turned away for lack of funds).

SANTA CRUZ GUERILLA DRIVE-IN is an outdoor movie theatre under the stars that springs up in the fields and industrial wastelands. Beyond showing great free movies and bringing a broad community together, part of our mission is helping reclaim public space and transforming our urban environment. Find out more at website https://www.guerilladrivein.org/

Info from https://www.instagram.com/p/DbM-qp_v2Jy/

06/30/2026

Little Giant Collective

Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world…come to Little Giant Collective’s (not) gin joint on First Friday for an ode to Santa Cruz. 💓🌈💓

⭐️✨“Here’s Looking at you, kid” ✨⭐️opening July 3rd at Little Giant Collective marks member Sadie Lynn’s last show (for now) in Santa Cruz.

Come see this love letter to our sweet little town, and view paintings and prints of beloved local haunts in the style of classic movie posters. 

Artist bio: 
Sadie Lynn is a painter and printmaker whose work explores concepts of belonging, community, and care. She has lived in Santa Cruz for ten years, and has been a member of Little Giant Collective for a number of those. She leads linocut workshops, q***r speed dating nights, and is an avid attendee of horror film screenings.art

06/23/2026

Santa Cruz Guerilla Drive-In

This Friday! All are invited to the first screening of the 2026 Santa Cruz Guerilla Drive-In 2026 season! Back after an extended hiatus! Yeah, this Friday June 26th a bit before dusk.

Before our main feature we will begin with the short 1994 film by Tamara Davis - “No Alternative Girls” - which has been described as is a gritty, unfiltered 6-minute documentary exploring identity and sexuality among female alternative musicians. Featuring candid interviews with icons like Kim Gordon, Kathleen Hanna, and Courtney Love, the film cuts through mainstream media misrepresentations to highlight authentic riot grrrl perspectives.”

After a brief intermission our feature - “We Are the Best” - Three teenage girls in 1980s Stockholm form a punk band despite having no instruments or musical talent. The movie follows the misfits Bobo, Klara, and the more reserved Hedvig as they navigate adolescence and punk culture, creating music as an outlet for their energy and anger, even when told punk is dead. The film captures the spirit of youthful rebellion and friendship.

URBAN WASTELAND LOCATION: From downtown, head south on Soquel Avenue. At Riverside, by the Royal Taj, turn right. Follow the path down to the sandy area under the bridge (and let’s take care of the spot and pack-it-in-pack-it-out and especially when film over after dark please be respectful of neighbors when leaving and use library voices).

PLUS thrilling short films, an intermission, great company and a guaranteed good time!

BRING blankets, pillows, anything you need to be comfortable in foldy metal chairs indoors, friends, snacks to share. Donations to support the project are more than welcome.

SANTA CRUZ GUERILLA DRIVE-IN is an outdoor movie theatre under the stars that springs up in the fields and industrial wastelands. Beyond showing great movies and bringing a broad community together, part of our mission is helping reclaim public space and transforming our urban environment.

06/16/2026

All are invited to the first screening of the 2026 Santa Cruz Guerilla Drive-In 2026 season! Back after an extended hiatus! Friday June 26th at dusk. PHOTO: here is some of the GDI collective testing our equipment and having a peek of 2 films - in image is “Linda Linda Linda” which perhaps we’ll show another time but for our upcoming showing come for the other film we watched a bit of…

“We Are the Best” - Three teenage girls in 1980s Stockholm form a punk band despite having no instruments or musical talent. The movie follows the misfits Bobo, Klara, and the more reserved Hedvig as they navigate adolescence and punk culture, creating music as an outlet for their energy and anger, even when told punk is dead. The film captures the spirit of youthful rebellion and friendship.

URBAN WASTELAND LOCATION: From downtown, head south on Soquel Avenue. At Riverside, by the Royal Taj, turn right. Follow the path down to the sandy area under the bridge.

PLUS thrilling short films, an intermission, great company and a guaranteed good time!

BRING blankets, pillows, anything you need to be comfortable in foldy metal chairs indoors, friends, snacks to share. Donations to support the project are more than welcome.

SANTA CRUZ GUERILLA DRIVE-IN is an outdoor movie theatre under the stars that springs up in the fields and industrial wastelands. Beyond showing great movies and bringing a broad community together, part of our mission is helping reclaim public space and transforming our urban environment. Find out more at guerilladrivein.org

05/16/2026

Hard Core Compost

05/03/2026

Santa Cruz Guerilla Drive-In

A BLAST FROM THE PAST (as we look towards the future!)
Santa Cruz Guerilla Drive-In at City Hall Protest (Photo: B. Elderberry)

https://santacruzlife.com/santa-cruz-guerilla-drive-in/ (article from years ago) - There are no formal drive-in movie theatres left in Santa Cruz County, but a few times a year you can follow a set of buried-treasure type directions to find the Guerilla Drive-In, an anarchist outdoor moving movie theater whose legality is hazy but whose awesomeness is not.

Guerilla Drive-In, which started in 2002, claims, “Beyond showing great free movies year-round and bringing a broad community together, part of our mission is reclaiming public space and transforming our urban environment.”

Bringing together two passions innate to Santa Cruz — DIY (Do It Yourself) culture and great cinema — Guerilla Drive-In screens free films at different locations around town. The first guerilla theater in the country, it often does not secure rights or permits to show these films. This is part of their mission to reclaim public space — they don’t believe permits should be needed to simply enjoy a movie outdoors with some friends. As a result, police officers have sometimes broken up the peaceful viewings, on the grounds of trespassing.

The movement has since spread to places like Hollywood, Berkeley, and even New York.

Though some of the art films shown at Guerilla Drive-In are family-friendly, getting to the various secret locations is not for the faint of heart — recent instructions for finding the film Brazil included phrases like “Go to the back of the building. Follow the Giant Dragons,” and “Use of bikes and Hwy 1 footbridge connector is encouraged. At the bottom of the big bike hill, make a right.”

But what makes the Guerilla Drive-In most special isn’t the hunt to find it, or the rocky legal history, or even the fact that it started in Santa Cruz and turned into a national underground movement. It’s the sense of community it creates, and the leeway allowed in DIY culture that isn’t present in for-profit movie theatres. Although it only happens a few times a year, it’s worth following the Drive-In to see when the next warehouse or parking lot will turn into the weirdest theatre you’ve ever seen. -Blair Stenvick

And did you know that GDI has an instagram page? If you use this particular social media give it a look (this post was originally there). https://www.instagram.com/sc_gdi

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SANTA CRUZ GUERILLA DRIVE-IN is an outdoor movie theater under the stars that springs up unexpectedly in the fields and industrial wastelands. Beyond showing great free movies and bringing a broad community together, part of our mission is reclaiming public space and transforming our urban environment.

04/23/2026

Free Skool Santa Cruz