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LIFE LAB SCIENCE PROGRAM

EIN 94-2778848 SANTA CRUZ, CA

Revenue 2023
$2,298,901
Expenses 2023
$2,320,551

Program services were 72.9% of total expenses calculated — Part IX's program-services column over total expenses, both as filed.

As filed

Subsection
03
NTEE code
B900
Classification
2100
Street
1156 HIGH ST TRLR 1156

These codes are the IRS's own and are shown exactly as filed. What each one means is in the Business Master File documentation (opens in a new tab).

Mission and programs · 2023

Mission

Life Lab cultivates childrens love of learning, healthy food, and nature through garden-based education.

Activities or mission (Part I)

Life Lab cultivates childrens love of learning, healthy food, and nature through garden-based education. Drawing on over forty years of work with young people in gardens, Life Lab, is a national leader in the garden-based learning movement.

  • Local School Site Programs: Life Lab provides garden classroom instruction, design, garden care, curriculum, teacher training, and program leadership and advisory support to school districts and their public elementary schools in Santa Cruz County, particularly in the Pajaro Valley Unified School District through an extensive program partnership. Life Lab is also supporting garden-based learning in Live Oak School District and Santa Cruz City Schools, with a long-term vision of closer partnership with all 10 local districts and their 40 total elementary schools.(continued on schedule o)

    Expenses $1,691,249 · Revenue $1,650,730

  • National Programs: Life Lab offers hands-on workshops on garden-based science, nutrition, and environmental education for educators from across the nation at its Garden Classroom in Santa Cruz, CA, and on demand around the U.S. It also offers a 16-week intensive Certified School Garden Educator course of virtual trainings, coaching, and peer sharing for participants across the country. Life Lab also hosts an annual national School Garden Support Organization Leadership Institute in partnership with Whole Kids Foundation to help teams from peer organizations share and advance best practices for the field. Life Lab develops and distributes curricula, activity guides and other learning materials nationally to support preK-6 teachers in successfully implementing hands-on garden-based education programs. (continued on Schedule O)

  • Local Community Site Programs: Life Lab provides school year field trips and summer day programs at its Garden Classroom and Blooming Classroom educational gardens located on farms in Santa Cruz and Watsonville, respectively. Gardens give children the chance to experience hands-on learning about science, nutrition, the environment and much more. The Garden Classroom also serves as a demonstration site for visitors interested in developing educational gardens. Life Lab staff train and mentor more than 60 college and community interns to serve as experiential garden-based science and environmental educators each year in field trip programs.

As filed on the 2023 return. The filer continues this part on Schedule O, which is not shown here.

Officers and directors · 2023

As listed in Part VII of the 2023 return, in the order the filer printed them. Each return names its own; this is not a roster the organization keeps with us.

  • Judit Camacho

    Co-Exec Dir

    Total calculated
    $85,756
    From this org
    $82,836
    From related orgs
    $0
    Other
    $2,920
    Hours/week
    30

  • Whitney Cohen

    Exec Director

    Total calculated
    $83,475
    From this org
    $74,640
    From related orgs
    $0
    Other
    $8,835
    Hours/week
    30

  • Don Burgett

    Co-Exec Dir

    Total calculated
    $80,599
    From this org
    $71,189
    From related orgs
    $0
    Other
    $9,410
    Hours/week
    30

  • Katy Stonebloom

    President

    Total calculated
    $0
    Hours/week
    5

  • Jacob Young

    Vice President

    Total calculated
    $0
    Hours/week
    5

  • Oscar Paz

    Secretary

    Total calculated
    $0
    Hours/week
    3

  • John Brissenden

    Treasurer

    Total calculated
    $0
    Hours/week
    5

  • Gary Appel

    Director

    Total calculated
    $0
    Hours/week
    3

  • Susana Dutro

    Director

    Total calculated
    $0
    Hours/week
    2

  • Barbara Gordon

    Director

    Total calculated
    $0
    Hours/week
    3

  • Alicia Martinez

    Director

    Total calculated
    $0
    Hours/week
    3

  • Jackie Medina

    Director

    Total calculated
    $0
    Hours/week
    3

  • Daisy Morales

    Director

    Total calculated
    $0
    Hours/week
    2

Compensation is as filed in Part VII: reportable pay from this organization and from related organizations, other compensation, and hours per week. The total, marked calculated, is our sum of the three dollar columns, with a blank column counted as $0; the form itself has no total. On a Form 990-EZ the columns are Part IV's instead, and on a Form 990-PF Part VIII's — compensation, contributions to benefit plans, and expense account — and the total sums those. Earlier years are each on their own filing page.

Filings

  • 2023
    Revenue
    $2,298,901
    Expenses
    $2,320,551
    Contributions
    $647,660
    Grants paid
    $0
  • 2023
    Revenue
    $4,176,191
    Expenses
    $3,980,372
    Contributions
    $3,029,882
    Grants paid
    $0
  • 2023
    Revenue
    $4,176,191
    Expenses
    $3,980,372
    Contributions
    $3,029,882
    Grants paid
    $0
  • 2022
    Revenue
    $2,947,249
    Expenses
    $2,742,810
    Contributions
    $1,277,726
    Grants paid
    $0

The four totals the IRS asks for on Part I of the Form 990, as filed. A dash means the figure was not present on the return — not that it was zero.

Other returns filed

  • 2021 · 990

    Revenue
    $1,126,555
    Expenses
    $1,333,886
    Assets (EOY)
    $458,755

  • 2020 · 990

    Revenue
    $684,568
    Expenses
    $1,294,748
    Assets (EOY)
    $475,946

  • 2019 · 990

    Revenue
    $1,692,709
    Expenses
    $1,052,728
    Assets (EOY)
    $940,952

  • 2018 · 990

    Revenue
    $932,100
    Expenses
    $862,105
    Assets (EOY)
    $309,067

  • 2017 · 990

    Revenue
    $839,026
    Expenses
    $758,732
    Assets (EOY)
    $231,707

  • 2016 · 990

    Revenue
    $1,223,810
    Expenses
    $1,137,398
    Assets (EOY)
    $460,777

  • 2015 · 990

    Revenue
    $1,254,238
    Expenses
    $954,989
    Assets (EOY)
    $418,536

  • 2014 · 990

    Revenue
    $1,058,414
    Expenses
    $976,515
    Assets (EOY)
    $144,520

  • 2013 · 990

    Revenue
    $779,275
    Expenses
    $924,226
    Assets (EOY)
    $106,272

Nonprofiteer parses Forms 990, 990-EZ and 990-PF, in a window of recent tax years. These returns are recorded from the IRS e-file index, so their figures were extracted by that index rather than read from the return here — treat them as a different source from the filings above, not as more of the same record. A dash means the index carries no figure; Form 990-T listings carry none at all.

Grants made

No itemized grants to organizations. Schedule I is filed only by organizations that granted more than $5,000 to a recipient, so most filers have none.

Grants received

The 10 largest by cash amount. The API serves every itemized grant.

Other IRS files

Auto-Revocation List

Not listed. The IRS publishes this list for organizations whose exemption was automatically revoked for failing to file for three consecutive years.

Publication 78

Listed as of 13 October 2026, under deductibility PC.

These are two separate IRS files on two separate schedules, shown as published and not reconciled with each other. Neither is a statement about whether a contribution is deductible today: 19,245 organizations appear in Publication 78 while the IRS's own revocation file lists them as currently revoked, more than half of those revoked before 2019. Absence from Publication 78 is evidence of nothing, and presence is not evidence either. Verify current status with the IRS before relying on it.

What this page reflects

The registration facts above come from the IRS Business Master File published 13 October 2026 and read 29 October 2026, for every organization at once. Returns through tax year 2023, the newest we have parsed for this organization.