Rising with the Tides of Change Through Community Based Literacies

Community Based Literacies (CBL) connects faculty, undergraduates, and graduate students from the University of California, Santa Barbara, with school-age children from the central coast of California. This chapter presents an account of how our intergenerational university-community team pulled together during intersecting challenges of COVID, sociopolitical upheaval, and extreme environmental conditions to connect with and engage in meaningful experiences with our local community of youth and families. Our efforts involved major shifts from in-person to virtual explorations and collaborative projects (e.g., an anthology coauthored by youth) with an even greater emphasis on social activism and celebrating the experiential knowledge of youth that is often overlooked. Hence, this chapter offers readers a ‘spotlight tour’ of CBL programming during a tumultuous period. We share parallel tales of perseverance and transformation of three key CBL programs—LEAFY (Literacies for Environmental Awareness and Farming for Youth), Curie-osity Project, and CBL in the Schools (a partnership with Santa Barbara Unified School District) to show what possibilities abound when we give young students access to knowledge about key societal issues and a platform by which they can contribute to the transformations needed for a socially just and equitable society.