Dear Montecito: Joan Curran

“I hadn’t imagined myself working in the nonprofit sector when I started college,” says Joan Curran. Joan was a freshman at the University of San Francisco when she began her federal work study and – as she would later realize – began her career. Joan joined the team at a San Francisco–based nonprofit called Career Girls as a publicity and marketing assistant. Joan and the team conducted video interviews of successful women, edited the videos, and posted them on their platforms. The team also brought these materials to schools to share with elementary students. “I remember being at one school in particular, we showed a video of a woman talking about Mae Jemison, the first African American woman to travel to space. When Mae showed up on camera, I saw a girl’s eyes light up, and she said: ‘Oh my gosh… she looks just like me!’” From then on Joan new that she wanted to make an impact on people’s lives within her community and continue working in the nonprofit world. Now with a degree in hand, Joan has returned to her hometown of Santa Barbara to join our local nonprofit space as the Marketing and Development Manager at The Terrace Foundation.

Q.What do you and your team do at The Terrace Foundation?

A. The Terrace Foundation nonprofit is located in the westside of Santa Barbara on a low-income independent senior living community called Pilgrim Terrace Cooperative Homes. We operate an urban farm in that community and have multiple alternative farming systems including aeroponic tower farms, which are great when it comes to saving water and healing soil, a microgreen greenhouse, and an organic soil farm. We integrate this farm into a meal program we operate to help the seniors that live here. Our meal program gives senior residents a three-course meal, Monday through Friday. Our main mission is to empower and educate communities to take control of their food supply. In 2023, we gave over 20,000 meals to feed the senior residents, ran education programs here in Santa Barbara, and delivered produce to local businesses, schools, and nonprofits like The Unity Shoppe. We’re trying to make sure that high quality nutrition is always right around the corner! 

How big would you say the need is for this type of program in Santa Barbara?

It is incredibly needed, especially here in Santa Barbara County. We are the fourth wealthiest county in Southern California, yet over 10% of Santa Barbara County is food insecure, which is around 45,000 people. About 19,000 seniors over 65 are 200% below the federal poverty line and live alone, which make them susceptible to food insecurity. Where we operate at The Terrace Foundation, we’re in one of the most food insecure areas in Santa Barbara, meaning that people on the westside have limited access to sufficient food or even just quality food – to me, this is a person’s basic needs. It’s a socioeconomic problem. And it is important for us to help feed our community the healthiest produce that we possibly can. 

What is it like to work in the Santa Barbara nonprofit space?

One thing about the nonprofit industry is that you have to wear a lot of hats. I think that’s one of the perks of working at a nonprofit, you gain so much versatility learning how to manage different roles and responsibilities like customer relations, managing programs, learning new software that your industry uses. I feel like I am always on my toes, and I love working here because of it. 

Was it intimidating to step into this role at an important nonprofit?

Yes! I would say it was nice that I had some marketing experience already with Career Girls, but this was my first leadership position. A lot of the beginning was not only about learning to do the job but also learning how to voice my opinions and make sure that I organized my priorities accordingly. I think it was very intimidating at the beginning, but we have such wonderful people working here who have helped me, so it became less intimidating over time.

Reflecting from your job back to college, is there anything you have noticed that you cannot learn in the classroom – something you simply have to learn on your feet?

How to interact with people. I think I’ve learned what I know through real world experience, not in the classroom. It’s also been a big learning curve learning how to network and how to communicate professionally. These are things that you touch on in college, but we should definitely have more opportunities to practice these skills before we graduate!

If you want to learn more about The Terrace Foundation visit their news article published by KEYT, and Joan says that community members are always welcome to tour the urban farm facilities!