The TimeBank offers a series of Sustainable Living Skills Workshops that are free-of-charge to its members and low-cost to non-members. Proceeds from these Pop Up Reskilling Expo events benefit the TimeBank.

To register for a class, use the TimeBank’s PayPal Donate Button (http://santacruz.timebanks.org) to pay the fee. Upon receipt, we’ll send you the address.

• Tool Sharpening
• Instructor: Bob Dunn
• Private Home in Capitola
• Saturday, June 27
• 10:30 to noon
• $8

Come learn how to sharpen your own garden and woodworking tools with Bob Dunn. Bob will be bringing a variety of sharpening stones and files to the workshop. Students are encouraged to bring knives, scissors, wood chisels, and gardening tools to get sharpened. From what is brought, Bob will show how to sharpen them and let anyone who wants to practice. Bob prefers traditional hand methods for sharpening. It's much safer for the sharpener and for the item being sharpened.

• Marketing Your Art
• Instructor: James Aschbacher
• Art Bar at the Tannery
• 1060 River Street $112
• Thursday, July 9
• 4:00 to 6:00
• Free

Come join a free roundtable discussion about marketing your art work (pricing, venues, sales) led by artist, muralist and TimeBanker James Aschbacher. The Timebank is a network to share skills and talents using time as currency. We'll have info about how to join at this free event.

• Greywater Laundry to Landscape Workshop
• Instructor: LeAnne Ravinale, Certified Greywater Installer
• Private Home in Capitola
• Saturday, July 25
• 10:30 to noon
• $15

You’ll learn how Laundry to Landscape systems inexpensively save water and replenish the aquifer. The class will cover specific installation techniques, materials and tools needed and resources for further study.

• Composting Workshop
• Instructor: Sylvia Patience, Master Composter
• Private Home in Live Oak
• Saturday, August 8th
• 10:30 to noon
• $10

Topics covered will include: What is composting? Why compost? What makes composting happen? Basic recipe for compost. What should and should not be composted. Types of bins. Hot vs. cold composting. Using compost. Basic worm composting. The workshop will be helpful to people new to composting as well as those already composting who have questions or problems.

Participants who are customers of Green Waste will be eligible to receive their choice of either an Earth Machine composter or Can of Worms worm bin from Green Waste.

• Solar Water Heating
• Instructor: Ron Pomerantz
• Private Home on the West Side
• Saturday, August 29
• 10:30 to noon
• $10

Past Workshops

• Fruit Tree TLC in a Drought
• Instructor: Monica Larenas
• Private Home in Seabright
• Saturday, June 13
• 10:30-noon
• $15

Come learn the basics of tree care for this time of year including mulches, fertilizers and irrigation with TimeBanker Monica Larenas at her home orchard in the Seabright area.

You will see some 9 citrus trees in various stages (25+ year old to planted this spring), plums, figs, young apples (with recently grafted limbs), an apricot and a young avocado. Monica will use them to illustrate the topics under discussion. She’ll also cover the basics of training (shaping, pruning) trees and/or site and tree selection, if there is interest.

Monica has been gardening in Santa Cruz for the last 30 years. She likes to sneak fruit trees into her home gardens. She’s been studying tree care for three years with Orin Martin at the UCSC Farm and Garden. She has lots to share from her studies, observations, successes, and failures.