Present Story
About Present
Present is an Adventure Gift Store™ in the heart of the Santa Cruz Mountains, established in November 2020.
Located in Boulder Creek, California, our small town shop offers goods from local makers: souvenirs for the area's outdoors and apparel, accessories, stickers, stationery, and home + travel goods that promote environmental sustainability, equity, conscious living and our community.
2023 was the last year in our downtown Boulder Creek storefront. Please read the blog post for more detail. In 2024, Present will pop up at events around the Santa Cruz Mountains + consistently revamps our online shopping experience.
Why Now?
Present's storefront 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.
Check out these pages for more about Present Values, Mission + Team
