Ben Martin remembers the day the music stopped in Truckee.

It was four years ago. The Covid-19 pandemic was sending alarms that reverberated throughout the mountain community. Students could no longer attend in-person lessons at Tahoe Truckee School of Music and live music performances came to an abrupt halt at downtown venues.

“It impacted us tremendously. For performing musicians, it was really devastating. Things came to a stop,” said Martin, founder and executive director of Tahoe Truckee School of Music.

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Nevada County responded to local organizations in dire need with a series of Community Resiliency Grants, providing one-time funding of up to $100,000 for local programs to increase resiliency, support recovery and provide relief from the impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Nevada County Board of Supervisors allocated 30 percent of its American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) allocation, $5.8 Million, for Community and Economic Resiliency projects. This included four grant programs and one loan program.

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“We acted in a nimble way to turn the federal aid money around quickly for local impact,” said District 5 Supervisor Hardy Bullock.

With the funding, Tahoe Truckee School of Music was able to invest money into the technology needed to put classes online and hire out-of-work musicians to teach lessons. In 2022, the nonprofit reached 1,125 people through workshops, camps and classes and 5,000 with private lessons. With the capital, they could start a free instrument loan program for all ages, bringing the joy of music to the people.

“The grant helped us get on our feet at the school and it also kept local musicians afloat,” said Martin. The online class functionality deployed during Covid is still being used today during winter snow storms when the roads are too treacherous for traveling. “We’re much better equipped and we’re way better off than we were before,” said Martin.

As an added bonus, the grant gave the organization the funding and courage to step up, expand services and grow by collaborating with other community organizations, like the Truckee Recreation Department, local schools and the Boys and Girls Club to produce a series of outdoor events that reached 35,782 people in 2022, a 300 percent growth in individuals reached through community performances.

“I think that in some ways, the grant pushed us to change. We’re much more proactive now and we realized we can reach more of the community. Personally for me, that’s what makes this so exciting. That’s really part of our philosophy now – how can we better serve the whole community?” said Martin.

Building a resilient community

With the grant, Truckee Downtown Merchants Association kept the local economy humming with the production of a Covid-safe outdoor summer street fair series known as Truckee Thursdays. Over 60,000 people and 120 different vendors participated in the 8-week series.

At Gateway Mountain Center, grant funding helped expand community crisis and substance abuse support, therapy, mental health training for staff and nature outings for 150 local at-risk youth.

Sierra Community House – a network of four organizations (Family Resource Center of Truckee, North Tahoe Family Resource Center, Tahoe SAFE Alliance, and Project MANA) – received grant funding to provide rental and utility assistance and distribute food to 520 families each week. Sierra Community House also provided parenting resources, legal advice for those with questions about immigration and housing laws as well as victims of domestic abuse.

“The grants supported our partners and built capacity for the arts, economic development, social support programs and conservation. When Nevada County supports our Eastern County community, we all benefit,” said District 5 County Supervisor Hardy Bullock.

A safe place for families

Three decades ago, KidZone Museum opened to give local families with children under six years of age a safe and nurturing place to go to avoid isolation during the long, cold winters of the Sierra Nevada. Covid-19 put the museum’s core values to the test.

During the pandemic, people were afraid to come out and many of the same issues originally stemming from piles of snow and bad roads – loneliness, depression, isolation – were happening again, at alarming rates, this time out of fear of getting sick.

“What we saw from Covid is that socialization is critically important for mental health and wellness; it’s the most important thing for humans,” said Executive Director Carol Meagher. Young children need socialization to develop speech and social skills.

With funding from the Community Resiliency Grant, the children’s museum was able to address the needs of local families and continue a 30-year mission of inspiring learning through creative play and discovery. Programs for low-income and marginalized families became a lifeline by keeping outreach staff connected to people cut off from the world.

Hands-on science, art and literacy kits were sent to homes with instructions to attend live videos so families could learn together at home, bilingual staff assisted schools with tutoring English language learners and museum staff partnered with organizations to make food deliveries.

The grant proved instrumental in sustaining the museum’s services for families throughout the Covid-19 pandemic, allowing the organization to conserve fundraising dollars for operational needs upon reopening.

Today, the museum is thriving with plans to construct a larger facility and remains steadfast to its mission to support young children as they reach developmental milestones crucial for lifelong success.

“We are committed to providing families with a dedicated space for child development, especially for children who do not have access to a yard for playing. We can do this year-round thanks to the county’s support,” said Meagher.

Restoring a watershed

A grant to Truckee River Watershed Council (TRWC) provided unrestricted funding that helped leverage important watershed and forest restoration projects throughout the Truckee River Watershed helping local communities become more resilient in the face of catastrophic wildfire, drought and impacts of increased recreation visitation.

Bolstering natural areas was especially critical at a time when Covid-19 triggered a spike in outdoor recreation users on public lands by as much as 200 percent.

“The greater Truckee area saw a huge upswing in visitation… Our community is concerned with wildfire across the landscape,” said Development Director Sue Drake. Since the organization was founded in 1996, it has participated in 44 restoration projects throughout the watershed with an ambitious goal of 55 more in the next decade.

On a horseshoe bend in the Truckee River Wildlife Area, near the California-Nevada stateline, 15 acres were restored to improve water quality and riparian habitat and reduce flood risks. The nonprofit also became one of five agencies to join the Middle Truckee River Watershed Forest Partnership with a goal to improve forest health across the watershed. TRWC will take the lead on facilitating the restoration of 7,500 acres upstream of Prosser Reservoir. Wildfire fuels were also treated on 470 acres of forestland, part of the Independence Creek Basin Forest Health project.

“The grant money is helping us move these projects forward,” said Project Director Eben Swain.

“The grant provided a lot of efficiencies. We could be five years behind without this funding. For us, this is really huge,” said Sr. Director of Restoration Beth Christman who worked on a project known as the Prosser roads assessment.

Data collected along a heavily used gated checkerboard backcountry road network and stream crossing will inform future sustainable access for recreation and protect and improve water quality, as well as resupply at Truckee Donner Backcountry huts and first responders during an emergency.

“As our communities become more populated, and we face more uncertainty with the extremes of drought, fire and flood, it’s more important than ever to restore these places to keep our landscapes resilient,” said Drake.

Learn more about the Community Resiliency Grant program at: https://nevadacountyca.gov/3652/Community-Resiliency-Grants.

Laura Petersen is a freelance writer living in Grass Valley. This is one of a series of articles written on behalf of Nevada County. She can be reached at laurapetersenmedia@gmail.com.