About Present

Our mission is to Spread Earth Love. 

Present: Adventure Gift Store™ promotes equity, authenticity, sustainability, positivity, indigenous rights, getting outdoors, living consciously + supporting small business. Every minute, emotion or dollar we spend is a vote for a certain future; let's spend wisely.

"The greatest threat to our planet is the belief that someone else will save it.”

Robert Swan

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 profits to partner non-profit organizations.

Check out our Volunteer or Donate page for a list of our initial contributions and organizations we volunteer with. 

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. As a Peninsula Open Space Trust Outings Leader and former Adventure Travel Guide, Jackie is happy to discuss local adventures with you anytime.

We have passion for promoting our community and providing 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 1 pound 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 
• 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, LGBTQ and/or black-owned businesses. These attributes are highlighted on our product pages. If you know of any great brands we should work with, please reach out. 

Together united, we can be a beacon of hope.

 

 

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.]

 

Why Now?

Present opened on November 13, 2020 after quite a few hurdles. On August 16 that year, instead of signing my shop lease as planned, we evacuated due to the CZU Complex Fire and returned almost a month later to home without potable water. Through this trying experience, our small community experienced climate change firsthand as the fire devastated SCM residents, Big Basin Redwoods State Park and many other mountain establishments and resources. Luckily our community and partner organizations are resilient and gaining learnings on how to rebuild smarter everyday. After almost two full years, Big Basin State Park finally reopened on July 22, 2022 and requires reservations (spaces limited). Our community is slowly recovering but will never be the same, and it's a stark reminder of the state of our earth. 

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.” As pandemics rage, human rights are restricted, fire sweeps through our communities and the Arctic Ice disappears, now is the time to come together, to lift vulnerable voices up, to vote for the earth + equality and to 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. I believe that the future is local and investing in public good is essential. I believe that the more time you spend in nature, the more you'll start to see.. So I've channeled all these values, hopes, beliefs and experiences into this vision that I hope will help make change.