Southern Santa Cruz County is a diverse agricultural community famous for its strawberries and produce. Located beside the Pacific Ocean, along the Pajaro River, the region represents some of California’s most productive farmland. Home to the city of Watsonville and a handful of small towns inhabited by farmworkers, South County is a tight-knit, predominantly Latino community. Unfortunately, at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, it was a hotspot for the virus, with death rates outpacing every other corner of the county.

Demonstrating its spirit of resilience, the community fought back, forming the South County Triage Group (SCTG). An Accountable Community for Health (ACH), the SCTG is coordinated by its backbone, the City of Watsonville, and its fiscal sponsor, Second Harvest Food Bank. The resulting ACH is a robust collaborative of over thirty local governments, nonprofits, foundations health care organizations, educational institutions and local businesses.

“By the end of the pandemic, we had the lowest percentage of positive cases in the county and a vastly reduced death rate,” says Erica Padilla-Chavez, CEO of Second Harvest. “We attribute this incredible turnaround to the dedicated collaboration of our many partners. There was something magical about how we came together, triaged the many issues that came about during a public health emergency and ultimately saved lives.”

Meeting monthly, and often more frequently due to the high-stakes nature of the pandemic, partners ensured that all their respective organizations moved in the same direction to handle new challenges, prepared for emerging issues and worked strategically to improve health, wellness and socioeconomic mobility.

As a result of this concerted effort, SCTG accomplished many impactful initiatives. It was able to:

• Distribute over $4 million in aid to undocumented communities,

• Save the local private hospital from closure—bringing it into public ownership,

• Integrate indigenous communities and farmworkers into ACH operations—providing materials in Mixteco, Zapotec and Trique languages,

• Distribute thousands of COVID-19 vaccines with a “friendly face,” and

• Pass an eviction moratorium in the City of Watsonville—the first in the state of California.

Moving forward, SCTG is now working to bring in environmental organizations working to reduce the local impacts of climate change. It is also prioritizing CalAIM implementation, which will engage community organizations in providing care fueled by sustainable funding. SCTG will also further strengthen its collective impact model to include community voices in everything the ACH does.

“We want to increase civic engagement and participation in every form—at community meetings, within decision-making groups, and at the ballot box,” Padilla-Chavez says. “We don’t want to make decisions without their input. We must center the community and our residents as we transform systems and change policy.”

For more information, visit pvpsa.org/south-county.