Local News

Martha’s Kitchen, a 40-year-old organization based in San Jose, has now expanded its free food distribution program to the Pajaro Valley. The nonprofit began in 1981 when Louise Benson, dubbed “The Mother Teresa of San Jose,” began making peanut butter and jelly sandwiches to give...

Watsonville Police on Tuesday arrested a murder suspect after an hours-long standoff in a strawberry field near Trafton and McGowan roads, just outside Pájaro. Hector Rocha, 44, of Watsonville, has been charged with first-degree murder. He was booked into Santa Cruz County Jail, where he...

Kokoro no Gako—or “School with a Heart”—is a two-week program held every summer at the temple. Students from Kindergarten to 6th grade learn about traditional Japanese customs and practices.

WATSONVILLE—Work is slated to wrap up this week on an underground sewer line on Freedom Boulevard on the north side of the city. The project, which got underway last week near the intersection of Buena Vista Drive and Compton Terrace at Freedom Boulevard, calls for...

PAJARO VALLEY—A growing list of helping hands during the flood crisis that struck Pajaro recently continues to dole out badly needed goods and services. On Saturday the staff at Pajaro Valley Shelter Services in Watsonville invited 100 families from Pajaro to help themselves to new...

Someday, Ceiba College Preparatory Academy 10th-grader Eduardo De León hopes to study computer science at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and forge a path for himself in the field of educational technology.

WATSONVILLE—Willy Elliott-McCrea has been with Second Harvest Food Bank Santa Cruz County since 1978. During that time, he worked as a truck driver and a warehouse manager before becoming director in 1988. He saw the organization through a number of crises that increased the need...

Santa Cruz County fared well in an air quality report released Wednesday, which state officials say is a testament to California’s stringent environmental laws.

Efforts are underway to help get the auto shop at Watsonville High School named after one of its long time instructors, Bill Sunderland. Following a 47-year career under the hood at the shop, Sunderland retired in 2017.