Butte Strong Fund

To date, the North Valley Community Foundation has granted more than $30 million for community recovery via the Butte Strong Fund, Camp Fire Relief Fund, and donor-designated funds. Complete lists of all grants made can be found at www.nvcf.org/nvcf-camp-fire-grants-made/ and buttestrongfund.org/projects/. Please note: The URL of the NVCF.org grant listing may change in the next few weeks. We are very excited to be launching a new, redesigned website very soon. All grant information will also be present and reviewable on the new website.

These grants have been made to hundreds of organizations for various purposes related to several categories related to Camp Fire resilience and recovery. We have made grants in various key areas of recovery, including: to support housing programs; for programs related to health and wellness; for recovery efforts for schools and educational programs; for animal service programs; for community service programs; for workforce and economic development programs; for direct assistance, which is typically cash assistance to those directly affected by the Camp Fire; and through other grants and designated funds for a variety of charitable purposes related to the recovery of our community.

Since the new year, the Butte Strong Fund has made grants to support a local food pantry in Paradise, an initiative focused on increasing access to services in the burn scar area through the Federal Office of Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities, a program that provides "home kits" of essentials to individuals who have recently secured permanent or temporary housing, and a capacity-building grant to support the local Meals on Wheels program which has expanded to Paradise to serve that population due to the closure of the Paradise program, among other small and continuing grants.

The Butte Strong Fund committee is still actively meeting and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. New applications, both for major grants and smaller capacity-building grants are being received and reviewed at least once a month, and new grants are being made every two weeks.

Our rebuilding and recovery work will continue as long as it needs to, thanks to generous donors like yourselves. While we continue to work on these efforts, we have a special focus on mental health and healing as we approach the anniversary of the disaster. We are actively working to launch a Healing Initiative to operate alongside our other recovery efforts with a special focus on innovative solutions to the long term phycological and emotional effects of the Camp Fire on those it affected.

Links:

• Butte Strong Fund website
• North Valley Community Foundation

So far, the North Valley Community Foundation has granted more than $27.5 million for community recovery via the Butte Strong Fund, Camp Fire Relief Fund, and donor-designated funds. Complete lists of all grants made can be found at www.nvcf.org/nvcf-camp-fire-grants-made/ and buttestrongfund.org/projects/.

These grants have been made to hundreds of organizations for various purposes related to several categories related to Camp Fire resilience and recovery. We have made grants in various key areas of recovery, including: to support housing programs; for programs related to health and wellness; for recovery efforts for schools and educational programs; for animal service programs; for community service programs; for workforce and economic development programs; for direct assistance, which is typically cash assistance to those directly affected by the Camp Fire; and through other grants and designated funds for a variety of charitable purposes related to the recovery of our community.

We have also helped several Camp Fire relief organizations, including the Camp Fire Long Term Recovery Group and the Rebuild Paradise Foundation, obtain their nonprofit status and have supported their operations, both through our own grants and by assisting them in securing grants from other sources. Additionally, we have opened more than a dozen funds at NVCF to allow various groups to raise money to support victims, including employee care funds established by businesses to support their employees who were affected and/or displaced.

The challenges that we, along with the community as a whole, have faced in this recovery effort have been immense. The sheer scale of the destruction and the unprecedented nature of essentially losing an entire town in a single day has created challenges that no one could have fully anticipated. Simply restoring enough infrastructure and ensuring a base level of safety to allow even the earliest rebuilding efforts has been an enormous task and one in which NVCF has played an active role. Through our involvement as a philanthropic organization, we have had the opportunity to address some of these challenges in a more comprehensive manner, and along a much faster timeline than our state and federal partners. NVCF has made grants to conduct a roadway assessment (opening the possibility to bring in millions of additional federal dollars) and helped fund the removal of damaged and dangerous trees from the properties of individuals who are wanting to rebuild on their own properties. When the weather warmed up and stagnant pools began to create a serious mosquito-borne illness threat, NVCF learned that the county mosquito abatement unit did not have the funds to adequately address this potential crisis so we addressed the challenge by making a grant to allow them conduct their important work in the burn scar area.

Our rebuilding and recovery work will continue as long as it needs to, thanks to generous donors like yourselves. While we continue to work on these efforts, we have a special focus on mental health and healing as we approach the anniversary of the disaster. We are actively working to launch a Healing Initiative to operate alongside our other recovery efforts with a special focus on innovative solutions to the long term phycological and emotional effects of the Camp Fire on those it affected.

Links:

• North Valley Community Foundation website
• Butte Strong Fund website