Community Restoration Projects
Learn more about our Community Restoration Projects here!
BYBB This Saturday to the Bucket Brigade Golden Shovel Awards!
Put on your best jeans or your party dress and come celebrate a whole year of kick @ss climate action in Santa Barbara. Click the link in our bio for tickets and more information.
Get ABSOLUTELY SHREDDED this summer!
Come learn how to lead fire-prevention projects at the Bucket Brigade Academy!
Forget the gym - we have a “Fire Risk-Reduction Workout” (FRRW💪🏾) for you that will leave Pilates in the weeds. 🔥#bucketbrigadeacademy #sbbucketbrigade #fireprevention
What are you doing this summer?
Bucket Brigade Academy -
Because Climate Change isn’t @#%^!&^ around.
#bucketbrigadeacademy
Come Celebrate With Us This Saturday!
Tom Shepherd - Communitarian Award 2026. Tickets available - Click the link in our bio or the QR Code
Come help us celebrate Tom Shepherd and the incredible community of volunteers that make it all happen each year.
Tickets on sale now - Click the link in our bio!
Apply now for the Bucket Brigade Academy Summer Youth Leadership Training Program!
Advanced First Aid - Leadership Skills Development - Team Deployment
Training - Internships - Leadership Jobs
Learn how to lead local climate action, disaster risk reduction and humanitarian aid deployment.
Begin your leadership journey this summer at the Bucket Brigade Academy!
Click the link in our bio for more information!
#bucketbrigadeacademy #sbbucketbrigade
It’s Strawberry Season and volunteers are needed tot help with the harvest at the BB Humanitarian Farm!
Click the link in our bio to sign up!
#sbbucketbrigade #bbhumanitarianfarm
Direct Climate Action this Saturday. You are invited!
The Western Monarch Butterflies are disappearing from Goleta! The time to act is now!
Join us this Saturday as we work to restore the butterflies’ winter nesting site in Ellwood Mesa Butterfly Preserve!
Let’s Go! Volunteer Link in our Bio. #sbbucketbrigade #bucketbrigadeacademy #elllwoodmesa #ellwoodfriends #communityrestorationproject
Climate change and natural disasters have taken a toll on our local ecosystem. Repeated wildfires, record-breaking droughts and short-duration, high-intensity rain events have caused all kinds of problems in the past 10 years. The Bucket Brigade has been working to restore ecological damage since our first deployment in 2018. Our restoration work began in the debris-flow damaged areas of the Ennisbrook Open Space and the Casa Dorinda Open space where we spent a whole year removing man-made debris, digging out native oak trees, rebuilding trails and replanting areas that were struggled with post-disaster invasive species pressure.
This work really resonated with volunteers, with the neighborhoods where we worked and with communities served by these restorations – so we stuck with it. To carry our our mission to train volunteers and volunteer leaders, we found a damaged area of a beloved local park and began a 7-acre Community Restoration Project: The Bucket Brigade Humanitarian Garden.
The garden sits in the heart of a vital watershed ecosystem that was badly damaged by failed agricultural ventures and a decade long drought. For this reason, it seemed like the perfect place to teach restoration leadership…by actually restoring the whole area together. The work began with weekly volunteer projects to remove flammable invasive plants to reduce fire risk and to clear areas for restoration. We then replanted the area with endangered native trees and an edible native cactus grove. We also created a 1-acre buffer area with 72 species of native nectar-producing plants to create a native pollinator demonstration garden.
In 2022, we launched the Bucket Brigade Academy at the Humanitarian Garden where we have trained 66 local students to lead volunteer deployments and restoration projects. Many of those students have gone on to lead flood-relief and sandbag assistance projects in the community. 8 elite students have become professional volunteer coordinators for the Bucket Brigade and lead local restoration projects at open spaces, schools and trails.
Our current restorations projects include The Humanitarian Garden (ongoing), Ellwood Mesa Butterfly Preserve (on behalf of the City of Goleta) and The Bucket Brigade Humanitarian Farm – a 1-acre urban farm restoration where we grow produce for local food-aid.
