We took two friends to lunch today downtown to the Saturn Cafe. It’s uber Santa Cruzy – a vegetarian restaurant (I know! I eat there!) with the best FLT (that fake bacon) and grilled cheese in the world. And fat fries. Yum.

Anyway, we come outside to see another uber Santa Cruz moment – the 350 Rally is going strong. Traffic is being halted as a bunch of folks are pulling a car with their bikes right down Pacific Avenue. A parade of activists are on it’s heels and Katie wanted to know why.

So she stopped a couple of the adorable grey-haired ladies to explained 350 to her and gave her a flag and encouraged her to get involved. That’s all it took – the fuse was lit.

We buzzed home, me with my friend, Katie with hers and the girls got to work. They got on 350.org to learn more, made a sign, handmade little “business cards” and set off to share their passion with the neighborhood. Apparently they walked all over, while Katie went up to the doors of our neighbors and told them to learn more about 350 (see below for more).

The sign came out great and she learned a bit about being an activist. It’s absolutely a cause she believes in – don’t get her started about saving the earth – and I have to say I am encourage by her process: she learned, planned, expressed herself, shared and then we talked about it that night.

Home School POV
I am sure her friend didn’t know what hit her. It will likely go down as the strangest play date ever for her girlfriend. But all I can say is yeah! home school. Because I am pretty sure she wouldn’t have been so quick to consume knowledge if I hadn’t spent the last two months showing her how to dive in! She’s done thinking she just goes to a classroom where people feed her information – I can see the hunger in her now to tackle things and learn on her own.

This is soooo awesome.

About 350
On 24 October, people in 181 countries came together for the most widespread day of environmental action in the planet’s history. At over 5200 events around the world, people gathered to call for strong action and bold leadership on the climate crisis. Read more>>