Higher Grounds closed until the New Year due to "Stay at Home" order

December 3, 2020, the state of California issued an new "Stay At Home" order requiring restrictions when ICU capacities drop below 15% availability.   

Unfortunately, our church prematurely made the decision to stop hosting Higher Grounds based on an email we received from the Santa Cruz Small Business Development Development Center with the subject "UPDATE - New Stay At Home Order for Santa Cruz County".   In this email, we were informed that Santa Cruz County is considered to be part of the Bay Area and would be required to comply with the order when ICU beds throughout the Bay Area dipped down below 15% capacity.  The Bay Area ICU capacity is currently at 25% and is anticipated to drop below 15% in mid-December.  As of December 3rd, Santa Cruz County was at 51.3% ICU capacity. 

We have continued to meet outside for outside church with the one exception of the night before when it rained.  About a week before Santa Cruz closed down outdoor dining, we could have opened for a week but knew that it would be short lived and confusing to open then close again in a few days so we remained closed.  Our hope is that we will reopen in the New Year.