New Nonprofit: The Milpas Eastside Business Association

A new nonprofit called the Milpas Eastside Business Association (MEBA) was officially designated and granted active status by the Secretary of the State of California on July 14 of this year. The newly formed nonprofit was built by four key Eastside business owners and residents who quietly and humbly on their own decided over a decade ago to revitalize the Milpas-Eastside corridor. Their canon to ignite this mission was to put up holiday lights every year at Christmas time along Milpas Street and the Milpas roundabout. They volunteered to do the work to purchase, put up, take down, and store the lights, and to walk Milpas Street door to door asking their fellow business owners to chip in to make it happen. 

This is an inspiring story of trust, philanthropy, and paying it forward to improve the quality of life and doing business on the Milpas Eastside area, and the creation of the MEBA is the natural solution to solidify the commitment to do so.

The MEBA co-founders are Beatriz Molina, Santos Guzman, Jose Perez, and Mary Robles – Eastside community members that are well-known for their efforts toward the holiday lights. Now with the establishment of the MEBA, they can officially seek grants, public funding, and act on their mission statement. While all the formality of administering a nonprofit is new to them, they are backed by the trust of the businesses and people of the Eastside based on their devoted work each year with the holiday lights alone.

The mission statement of the MEBA is: 

“Designed to address, educate, coordinate, and procure community resources for the community and business residents of Santa Barbara Eastside; to implement community solutions that improve the quality of life, and increase the well-being and health of our diverse community members. MEBA will host cultural events for the community to connect families to community education and resources currently available in the City of Santa Barbara. MEBA will provide holiday festivities and events which will include but not be limited to holiday cultural décor to provide a safe environment for the community. In addition, events will be held throughout the year as an additional resource for the community. MEBA will be working with other nonprofit associations to provide a comprehensive approach to address the improvement of the quality of life for the residents of the Eastside. Our Board of Directors is representative of business owners, social justice, community residency, and networking experience. After many years working in this community, the knowledge and experience that this board brings will contribute toward the success of the endeavors that MEBA will pursue.”

As I sat down to meet with the founders, they, at the outset, are very concerned about the funding needed to do the annual holiday lights for Christmas this year, as they just were informed the week of October 16 that the funding for all the holiday lights on Milpas Street and its roundabout that was promised to them by a City of Santa Barbara councilmember a while back, was subsequently denied by the entire City Council. The MEBA is now starting from zero.

MJ: What was your inspiration to do the holiday lights?

Beatriz Molina [BM]: It started backwhen the Milpas Community Association (MCA) was formed, and we joined it. We went through a lot of different ideas of what MCA was going to be like. The core group were all business owners, so we first thought to have it represent the businesses. But after meeting for several months, it was really determined that this [Milpas Eastside] community needed a lot of help, so we looked at combining the businesses and the community. We asked the business owners on the committee, what do we give the community that is tangible and visible? And that is when we talked about the Christmas lights, as a visual gift to the community. Christmas and lights are very important to the Latino community. We wanted to bring a sense of celebration within our culture, and the long goal is: how do we bring the community out to be together, to celebrate together and to feel safe on Milpas Street? We formed a subcommittee group doing the holiday lights on our own. Many remember, in the 1950s, there were Christmas lights on Milpas, but they went away, along with a lot of other things, over the years. There were a lot of influences that really hurt us. We want to bring how Milpas used to be – much more functional, safer, and prosperous for businesses, and the needs of the community for cleanliness, safety, and health.

MJ: The how and why of the holiday lights?

BM: The holiday lights reach grows every year since we started 12 years ago, and I’m proud of that growth. With growth it takes more resources than we have, manpower, and money. We went from 3,000 lights to 15,000 lights, now it’s a truckful of lights, and three trees, and that’s just the roundabout. The lights for Milpas Street are now five years old, so fairly new. We are allowed to do the lights on the street poles and the roundabout ourselves with volunteers, but we are not allowed to do the star lights on top, so we pay a contractor in Carpinteria, The Flag Factory, to put up the star lights and store them for us. It took us five years to pay for the purchase of the stars alone. 

Why we do it is because we recognize there is a significant poverty level in this community and wanted to bring back Christmas to them, so we do it with the lights so the families can come and enjoy them. Christmas lights are spiritual, cultural, and a joy to the heart. During the mudslides, the Milpas roundabout was still lit from Christmas because we were using gas generators for it, and many came here to get the spirit of Christmas. It gave the community a sense of pride, ‘Look here are lights for the whole of Santa Barbara to enjoy!’ 

Santos Guzman [SG]: We are putting our heart and soul in these projects for the community. Many people think the City of Santa Barbara does these lights; that is not the case. This is one hundred percent volunteers doing the work and myself asking the local businesses to help in funding it. Jose Perez’s employees and my employees put up all the lights on the lamp posts every year, and it takes three and a half hours to do it in one day. 

MJ: The goal of the MEBA this year?

SG: To make the Milpas corridor and the roundabout brighter with more lights. I hope that for the businesses helping me fund this, we will be more successful to give a window to the people that do not have the opportunity to enjoy the Christmas season. 

BM: Every year we learn more, how to do things better, how to handle the electrical issue better, we need more power in the roundabout, and more LED lights which are brighter than regular Christmas lights. We are open to donations to decorate the roundabout, both monetary funds and in-kind donations of holiday lights and decorations for outdoors.

MJ: MEBA’s goal for the future?

BM: First is the holiday lights goal – to light up Milpas even better, so all the streets and all the stores, and to go from the Canon Perdido-Milpas intersection all the way through to the ocean. We want it to be bright and light. 

SG: As an organization, there are a number of cultural-facing family-oriented events we want to have for the community, for the high percentage of Latin people here [Milpas], and for our younger generation. We want to have an ice-skating rink during the Christmas holidays, which is good for both the locals and tourists. Maybe it’s a dream, but if it’s possible, I want all of Cabrillo Boulevard to have Christmas lights as well.

BM: Yes, we want to bring back cultural events [that we] used to celebrate here, like Mexican Independence Day, the music, and dancers from the various regions of Mexico.  

In closing, the MEBA founders are hoping the community can help them with the funding and in-kind donations for the holiday lights and roundabout. 

Please reach out to them via the email in the 411.

411: Contact MEBA at: Milpaseastsidebusinessassn@gmail.com