About Present
Our mission is to Spread Earth Love.
Present promotes positivity, equality, authenticity, sustainability, getting outdoors, living consciously and supporting small business. Every minute, emotion or dollar we spend is a vote for a certain future; let's spend wisely.
Our Guidelines
1) Show Up.
2) Pay Attention.
3) Be Honest.
4) Don’t be attached to the result.
[Thanks to pastor Ed Bacon, from All Saints Church.]

Make Change: One Adventure at a Time
Our goal is ultimately to inspire more earth love in order to fuel 30x30. As a direct contribution, we will donate 30% of all proceeds to partner non-profit organizations.
Some of our initial contributions will include:
- Tomorrow's Air
- Cleaning carbon dioxide from the atmosphere
- Peninsula Open Space Trust
- Protecting open spaces in Santa Cruz county and neighboring areas for the benefit of all
- Save the Redwoods League
- Protecting and restoring California redwoods and connecting people to these epic forests
- Boulder Creek Fire Department
- Amah Mutsun tribal band
- ACLU
- Fostering a more inclusive union
Roots of change run deep. Similar to a redwood ecosystem, all environmental efforts are complexly intertwined with human rights. In order to allocate energy towards our earth crisis, we first need to align as a species on equitable social structures, that allow every human an opportunity to thrive, with equal access to all resources, including open spaces.
As a local retailer, we have an opportunity to help remove barriers and become boundary spanners. Getting outdoors can be intimidating; we aim to make your local wild more welcoming. We aim to promote our community and provide sustainable adventure guidance. Donations and business development over time will continue to reflect this goal and our mission and values.
Additionally many of our suppliers are also agents for change, including:
- Keep Nature Wild
- Removes 2 pounds of trash from the wild for every product sold
- Parks Project
- Each collection is made with purpose, helping fund a project in our parks
- Good + Well Supply Co
- Proceeds support the National Park Foundation
- Culture Flock
- Supports equality for everyone, protecting our planet, and being kind
- Sun Roots Jewelry
- Donates 10% of profits to charity
- United By Blue (coming soon!)
- Removes 1 pound of trash from oceans or waterways for every product sold
- Etsy
- Offsets all carbon emissions
Many of our suppliers are small local, women and/or black-owned businesses. These attributes are highlighted on product pages. If you know of any great brands we should work with, please reach out.
Together as a tribe, we can be a beacon of hope.
Why Now?
One decade ago, I was scouring limited environmental research for my thesis in college on Our Earth Endangered, Three Case Studies: the Amazon Rainforest, the Greenland Ice Shelf and the Great Barrier Reef, at a time when “climate change” and “global warming” were still debates, often in air quotes when voiced. Unfortunately today the environmental challenges we face are an irrefutable fact and our planet’s state is more bleak than the worst predications in my uni analysis; as one of my heroes, Ansel Adams noted (almost a century ago): “we must realize - and with desperate conviction - that it is truly later than we think.” Now is the time to come together, lift vulnerable voices up, vote for the earth and create a positive future.
I decided to establish Present now, during the unrest of our nation and the world, because we can’t wait. I’m just getting started, but I aim to create a welcome, positive, inspiring space for all humans in our area (locals and visitors alike), promoting a love for our earth and one another.
I created Present because I believe that if we can re-assign value as a society, we can make positive change. I believe in living in the present and in building a brighter future together. I believe that being in wild places is one of the best ways to tune inwards and to align with universal consciousness. So today I’m channeling all these values, hopes, beliefs and experiences into a vision that I hope will help make change.
About Me
Hi, I’m Jackie and I’m originally from a small farm town in Illinois but fell in love with the natural landscape of the Bay Area on my first visit twelve years ago. Throughout my twenties, I lived a dynamic lifestyle and trained in a myriad of roles and industries.
Overall I’ve grown into a wide breadth of defining characteristics: organization nut, roadtrip junkie, servant leader, admin expert, parks fanatic, sticker addict, twin BFF, LOMLs wife, cat/chicken mama, hiker, biker, trekker, business nerd, earth alarmist and entrepreneur, which leads me here - to a gift shop in the small town of Boulder Creek, CA - population: 4,081 and Gateway to Big Basin State Park. Getting here took immense trials, loss, learnings and love, and this shop’s rooted in my experience..
As an adventure travel guide for PEAK Adventure Travel in ‘12-’13, I got a unique opportunity to explore the vast expanses of America and to fall in love with this majestic country and our natural world over and over again. After living in So Cal and the #vanlife through my early 20s and then exploring Marin and Silicon Valley life with my husband, we fell in love with the rural, quaint lifestyle and jaw-dropping nature of the Santa Cruz Mountains and it quickly became home.
Today living in the mountains, we explore nature almost daily and constantly nurture our spirits with adventure. I hope to help others kindle their love for America and the outdoors.
Thanks for showing up!
