Community Engagement Day 2026

February 19, 2026

By: Will Holmes, Director of Community Engagement

Cate’s long standing tradition of Community Engagement Days continued this week. In lieu of academic classes, students and faculty traveled off campus grouped by advisories to partner with 28 different local organizations. For five advisories, the morning started on the Rincon Bluffs Preserve where a City of Carpinteria ranger proudly showed the incredible difference Cate has made over years by removing the invasive ice plant. 

As I walked around the dining hall during Wednesday’s advisory lunches, it was a treat to hear so many positive comments from different advisories. Reports of how it ended up being a beautiful morning and the rain this past week turned out to be helpful as the soft ground made landscaping efforts more productive. An advisor, who went to the Unity Shoppe, said their favorite part was, “spending time with our kids, off technology, engaging in meaningful work.”

The unsolicited praise and appreciation started coming from outside of Cate early that afternoon. Heal the Ocean wrote, “I’m following up from the beach cleanup today. What a fun morning. The teachers were great! The students were on a roll collecting 91.8 pounds of trash!! Many came back with full bags and went back out for more.  They said they were surprised by how much they found!” Ojai Valley Land Trust wrote, “We had a great project with the students today. They removed so much invasive mustard at the Ojai Meadows Preserve.” Perhaps the best comment so far was from Explore Ecology who wrote, “Wow! What great volunteers and a wonderful chaperone. We had so much fun and I hope they enjoyed it.” 

Even though Community Engagement Day is compulsory, the benefits are many. Budget cuts have greatly affected many of these organizations with which we partner, so our 900 plus collective hours were real and tangible. The time spent as advisories is an added bonus that helps to deepen those faculty-student relationships that are central to our community culture. For the Rincon Bluffs Preserve group, the  morning ended with another large pile of ice plant as this Cate tradition of engaging with the local community continues. Servons.