What type of community outreach did you have at the Lab in 2025?
Thanks to our many volunteers, the Community Relations team, led by Joselyn Delgado and me, has had another fantastic year engaging in community outreach. There were many events, large and small, including the Solano Stroll, Black Joy Parade, and the Berkeley Farmers’ Market. Having an informational booth at the farmers’ market has been an excellent opportunity for our early-career scientists to discuss the impact of their research. Our neighbors love being able to interact with scientists and get their questions answered, so that’s been a lot of fun. The Lab is planning to return to the farmers’ market again this year.
We’re also excited about our continued partnership with the Food Bank of Contra Costa and Solano. We volunteer there quarterly, and we have a great group of folks who have become regulars; we also welcome new volunteers each quarter. It’s a good mix of people.
Another remarkable aspect of 2025 is the success of our annual winter food bank challenge. We were able to raise more than $158,000 as a Lab this year, which was almost $20,000 more than we raised last year. We’ve been doing this since March 2020, and we’ve raised more than $914,00 for local food banks in that time. They say that every dollar donated can buy two meals. Since March 2020, the Lab community has helped local food banks provide 1.8 million meals to the community, a truly remarkable effort.
What are you looking forward to in 2026?
We’ve got a couple of really nice opportunities coming up. First, the Red Cross blood drives are back!
Also coming up is our first volunteer day with the Food Bank of Contra Costa and Solano. That’s on Valentine’s Day, Saturday, February 14th. We’d love to have anyone come out and volunteer with us there.
We continually add opportunities to the volunteer service portal, not only for community outreach but also for K-12 events. If anyone is interested in lending their time and talents to support the Lab in the community, they can visit service.lbl.gov.
What about the Lab’s public tours in 2026?
Our public tours are back. Last year marked our first year back in person since the pandemic, and we began slowly with four tours. Those were incredibly popular, and the spots were taken within minutes of being made available. This year, we’ve doubled our capacity, with eight public tours scheduled. If you have friends or family who are interested in seeing where you work, this would be a great opportunity.
We release the registration link several weeks before the tour date. The March tour link will be released Feb. 12. You can sign up for the community relations newsletter or visit the new public tours website to view all the tour dates and sign-up release dates.
On the tours, we visit the Molecular Foundry and the Advanced Light Source. The third facility will vary between NERSC and the Lab’s incredible machine shop.
How does community involvement serve the Lab?
There are several organizations in the East Bay that have, as part of their names, either Lawrence or Berkeley. Being out in the community allows us to help distinguish the unique and impactful institution that is Berkeley Lab.
We’re not UC Berkeley. We’re not the Lawrence Hall of Science. We’re not Lawrence Livermore. Having these conversations with people allows us to say, this is what makes Berkeley Lab special. It helps build trust by having one-on-one conversations with community members, allowing them to better understand what we’re doing and how our actions benefit society.
And that generates a lot of excitement and trust in what we’re doing. It creates third-party advocates for the Lab. When they talk with us and hear how we’re advancing cutting-edge science, they become more invested in our work. They’re interested in finding out ways to support us and engage with us. That might be through internships, jobs, or simply sharing their excitement about what we do with their members of Congress or city council members. These interactions build a supportive community around what we’re doing.
As we look to the year ahead, Joselyn and I would like to thank everyone at the Lab who has supported our community relations programs. We cannot do what we do without the volunteers who dedicate their time, effort, resources, and expertise. They are integral to the success of these programs. We’re grateful for what you do, and we’re excited to work with you this year.
