This last year has brought its share of challenges, yet it has also reaffirmed something essential: our community’s strength grows when we stand together.
This year, we leaned deeply into our community resilience tools and welcomed new team members whose knowledge and lived experience are already expanding our impact. With these fresh partnerships, we’re strengthening both our organization and the communities we serve.
We’re really pleased to be ending the year on a strong note by returning to our Firewise work in the Humbug Creek neighborhood. Our work there was unfortunately disrupted early in the year due to instability in our federal grant funding, so getting back on the ground feels especially meaningful. This is exactly why your support matters: community donations help ensure that our services remain steady, even when federal funding falls short or becomes inconsistent.
Strengthening our partnerships with Applegate Valley Fire District and A Greater Applegate has allowed us to return to the valley and clarify our various roles in the multi-layered wildfire resilience work happening there. To that end, we’re thrilled to welcome Kara Baylog and Tucker Grinnan to our outreach and education team, focused on expanding Fire Adapted Communities from Jacksonville to Williams. As anyone involved in community resilience building knows, this work truly takes a village, and we are so grateful to have two passionate individuals bring their depth of experience and local knowledge to our team.
This year we also faced a capacity gap in our Firewise efforts in the Phoenix–Talent area, and we’ve been able to take some solid steps forward thanks to the support of Bob McKean. Bob’s neighborly, on-the-ground approach—meeting residents for coffee, taking time to listen, and helping spark early conversations—has been invaluable. His work is helping neighborhoods begin the process of planning, connecting, and building resilience together.
Alongside these new additions, we’ve also been strengthening our partnership with Jacksonville Firewise by welcoming Linda Davis and Jeff McFarland into our circle of collaborators. Both have done extensive work throughout Jacksonville, helping many neighborhoods reach official Firewise certification and performing dozens of individual home assessments. Bringing their expertise, knowledge, and on-the-ground experience into our team has expanded our capacity to collaborate on neighborhood outreach, home wildfire risk assessments, and Firewise action planning beyond Jacksonville’s boundaries.
It has been a challenging year, marked by unstable federal funding, changes in team capacity, and a shifting nonprofit landscape. These new partnerships have been essential in helping us reengage in this important work. As we continue building bridges and leaning on the support of our partners and collaborators in the resilience space, we are reminded of the power and truth of our longtime motto: “Recovery happens at the speed of relationships.”
How Our Work is Impacting The Community
“It is extremely gratifying to me to be working together with a group of like-minded people, who care about and want to help others be better prepared/wildfire-ready. The thought that we may be helping save people’s lives in the future is hard to beat!”
– Jeff MCFarland, Jacksonville Firewise