Rooted in Recovery
The body keeps score of the land the same way it keeps score of trauma. The recovery of the person and the recovery of the land are not separate things.
Rooted in Recovery is a TEK-grounded pilot program testing whether purposeful coastal stewardship produces measurable shifts in stress physiology and behavioral health outcomes in recovery-adjacent communities. It is, to our knowledge, the first community-based pilot to combine Traditional Ecological Knowledge, salivary cortisol biomarker collection, and peer transmission in a recovery-adjacent population.
Participants spend four days at the Chumash Heritage National Marine Sanctuary with cultural practitioners, a marine scientist from emLab at UC Santa Barbara, and a licensed trauma-informed clinician. They conduct active stewardship, including eDNA water sampling using protocols developed in collaboration with Stanford University's Palumbi Lab and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. They gather, prepare, and share food. They practice somatic integration. And they are invited, at the end of the immersive, to become peer leaders themselves.
The peer transmission model is not incidental. It is the methodology. Twelve trained peer leaders then co-facilitate a condensed version of the experience for an entirely new cohort, without institutional delivery at every step. We are not asking whether peer support works. We are building a documented, replicable protocol that proves it does.
Salivary cortisol, validated psychometric instruments, and behavioral tracking data are collected before, during, and thirty days after the program for both cohorts, enabling direct comparison between professionally facilitated and peer-facilitated outcomes.
Serving approximately 60 participants across two cohorts in Santa Barbara County.
The Community Table Share
Santa Barbara County produces enough food to feed itself many times over. It does not distribute that food equitably. More than one in four county households faces food insecurity, and the communities most affected are those with the least access to the extraordinary local food system that surrounds them.
The Community Table Share is a pilot program that creates a new distribution pathway between Santa Barbara County's local food producers and its most food-insecure residents. It does not require new infrastructure. No commercial kitchen, no warehouse, no fleet of delivery vehicles. It plugs directly into existing local food share programs and asks them to do one additional thing: extend their reach to households that have been priced out.
In partnership with local sustainable farms, regenerative dairies, and community food cooperatives across Santa Barbara County, the Act of Recovery Foundation subsidizes memberships for qualifying households on a sliding scale. Current co-op members can donate 10-15% of their monthly share into a community pool, a contribution that is tax-deductible. Qualifying households receive a monthly share of locally raised protein, organic produce, and dairy at a price that reflects what they are able to contribute.
This is by design. The Community Table Share is built on the belief that everyone has something to give, and that the one-sided giver-and-receiver model common in most food assistance programs creates its own kind of poverty by stripping people of dignity, purpose, and reciprocity. Generosity is not a function of wealth. It is a function of health.
Priority is given to low-income households, transitional-aged youth, undocumented individuals, people with disabilities, and individuals navigating substance use and behavioral health challenges in Santa Barbara County.
Serving approximately 60 households across Santa Barbara and the Santa Ynez Valley.
Cultural Coastal Celebration
The Central Coast of California is not simply a place. It is a living system that has sustained Chumash cultural identity, food sovereignty, and community health for thousands of years. Cultural Coastal Celebration brings that system back into relationship with the people who belong to it.
This series of coastal gatherings takes place at Chumash ancestral sites along the Chumash Heritage National Marine Sanctuary, including Refugio State Beach, Syuxtun Story Circle at Leadbetter Beach, and the sacred private coastal land at Dos Pueblos Ranch, home to the original Chumash villages of Mikiw and Kuyamu. Each gathering is led by Chumash cultural bearers, marine scientists, local chefs, and healing practitioners who reflect the communities served.
Participants fish, gather native plants, prepare and share traditional coastal meals, learn from marine biologists about the biodiversity of the Santa Barbara Channel, and take part in ceremony. The series culminates in a traditional Hutash Ceremony celebrating the season's harvest, the ocean's abundance, and the knowledge gained together over time.
In the second year, returning participants step into mentorship, bringing new people into the circle and deepening their own connection to the coast as stewards rather than visitors.
Cultural Coastal Celebration is free to all participants. Transportation, meals, equipment, and materials are provided. Priority is given to Indigenous community members, people of color, transitional-aged youth, individuals with disabilities, and people navigating recovery from substance use and mental health challenges.
Serving approximately 120 unique participants across Santa Barbara County.
Community leadership in action
Beyond Our Programs
Protect Point Sal
Point Sal is sacred Chumash ancestral territory on California’s Central Coast — rich in kelp beds, migratory whale corridors, seabird rookeries, and thousands of years of cultural history. The Northern Chumash Tribal Council, in partnership with the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), is leading a broad coalition effort to establish a State Marine Conservation Area and advance Tribal co-stewardship of these waters.
Veronica Mendoza, Executive Director of The Act of Recovery Foundation, has been a key voice in this effort through her longstanding work with the Northern Chumash Tribal Council.
Disconnection is increasing. These programs rebuild connection where it matters most.