The 2nd Street Art Gallery & Gift Shop needs your help in order to keep going!

Redwood Voice has been closely following and reporting on the fundraiser on our co-production with KFUG Community Radio (an easy task considering we are the same crew) and the Wild Rivers Outpost, News Now: a radio news-broadcast every other Wednesday at 5pm.

The gallery created a GoFundMe page on April 28th, organized by Dawn Sibille Phillips, which can be found here. The description for the fundraiser is as follows:

Please help us save our 2nd Street Art Gallery and Gift Shop!

First, I would like to say the California Redwoods Art Association (2nd Street Gallery and Gift Shop) has had a lot of support throughout the years. I would like to thank each and every one of you that has been a part of growing this Non-Profit organization.

For those of you that don’t know anything about our organization, members volunteer to host the gallery and gift shop. They schedule guests coming into the classes being taught in the gallery classroom. As volunteers to the public, our hosts are vital assets to our business to the appropriate function with the Non-Profit. Our hosting volunteer positions are very special, involving interactions, not just with visitors, but being at the front desk answering phones from people interested in classes, sales or memberships to the gallery, as well as greeting guests as they come in from all over the world. Our organization is run daily by volunteers, including our officers and board members.

With all that said, we are uncertain when we will be back open for business due to the pandemic with Covid-19 (Coronavirus). All of our events being cancelled and the Gallery being closed is affecting our fate of serving the community with art. We are trying our best to come up with money to ensure our circumstances by opening up the books and collecting any money that’s owed. As a Non-Profit Organization, we are reaching out to the community to fulfill the funds necessary to survive for another two months or necessary time to resume regular hours of service at the 2nd Street Gallery and Gift Shop. We would greatly appreciate any amount donated to help us during these unprecedented times. Thank you in advance for any type of donation. We will be posting updates as soon as things change or we can resume business.

– Dawn Sibille Philips

At the moment of writing this, the gallery has managed to raise $1,525 of their $4,000 goal. The most recent donation was 11 days ago. Updates have been given on the page expressing thanks, it is vital that the fundraiser does not lose traction. In a post on April 30th, only 2 days after the start of the fundraiser, a post announced April’s rent is covered and that the rest would be going to May’s rent when it is received.

Over the coming weeks, though, there have been additional ways you can support the gallery!

Fran Uecker, owner of Firefly Soy Candles, is donating half of all proceeds from her soy wax melts to the gallery, as the gallery explains in the post below! So when you try supporting a local business, you could be supporting TWO simultaneously! (You can find Firefly Soy Candles here.)

For more information and to reiterate all the important links:
• 2nd Street Art Gallery’s Facebook Page
• 2nd Street Art Gallery’s GoFundMe Page
• Firefly Soy Candle’s Facebook Page

This article, before being posted, was first premiered as information written by Persephone Rose for the KFUG Community Radio production News Now. You can listen to this story and many others on the latest airing of News Now. You can listen to News Now every other Wednesday at 5:00pm on 101.1 FM and streaming online at kfugradio.org!

Memorial Day weekend has come and gone. If it’s shown us anything, it’s that we must prioritize and support the businesses following genuine safety measures. To those businesses who are pursuing this route who have not yet been informed, we hope this information finds you well! (If you somehow missed out on what transpired this weekend, it is succinctly summarized in this Facebook post by KFUG Station Manager Paul Critz.)

If you are a business looking to re-open, the information on how to begin the process has been released. By following these steps, you’ll be up for consideration in opening back up—so long as you follow these precautions.

First, where can you find this information? On Del Norte County’s official website (co.del-norte.ca.us/), the Public Health section of the website has a tab dedicated to all local information on COVID-19 (as you would probably expect). It has recently added a Roadmap to Recovery. It describes each of the 4 Stages of the state order’s 4 Stage plan in simple detail and how that applies to our personal lives, especially business owners who are hoping to re-open. Currently, we are entering Stage 2, which describes the following: “Gradually reopening retail (curbside only), manufacturing, and logistics. Later, relax retail restrictions, adapt and reopen schools, child care, offices and limited hospitality, and personal services.” The extended plan and the important details behind exists as a 7 page PDF file to this section of the website, created on May 15th, 2020. You can view and download the PDF by clicking here.

It opens describing the county’s plan as being that which takes into account orders from the state and needs to be fulfilled.

In order for a business to begin re-opening, it must do all of the following:

1. Perform a detailed risk assessment and implement a site-specific protection plan.
2. Train employees on how to limit the spread of COVID-19, including how to screen for symptoms and stay home if they have them.
3. Implement individual control measures and screenings.
4. Implement disinfecting protocols.
5. Implement physical distancing guidelines.

After these 5 tasks have been completed, businesses must then submit a COVID-19 Operations Plan to Del Norte County Public Health in order to reopen. (You can find the form here.)

It is necessary for this form to be completed in order to be considered eligible for reopening. The Economic Resiliency Branch of the EOC is available to assist businesses in completing their COVID-19 Operations Plan. Completed plans may be submitted for approval electronically to:  DNR2R@co.del-norte.ca.us or mailed to: Del Norte County Public Health 400 L Street Crescent City, CA 95531.

When the correct sector is open and a business has submitted a COVID-19 Operations Plan to Public Health for review and approval, that business is “Ready to Reopen.” They may self-certify their location and reopen with pending approval of the COVID-19 operations plan. They should print the Self-Certification Window Placard (the link can be found on this same webpage) and place it in a window or where it can be easily viewed by the public.

Any and all other information about the reopening process can be found on this page of the website.

This article, before being posted, was first premiered as information written by Persephone Rose for the KFUG Community Radio production News Now. You can listen to this story and many others on the latest airing of News Now. You can listen to News Now every other Wednesday at 5:00pm on 101.1 FM and streaming online at kfugradio.org!

Since the Del Norte Unified School District has placed schools under closure amidst these days of distancing from COVID-19, some of you may be a bit confused to see school buses still quite active throughout the mornings. While these buses aren’t being used to pick up students, they’re still being used to help them in these confusing times.

Thursday morning, March 19th, I had the interesting experience of tagging along with Crescent City Bureau Chief Jessica Cejnar for a school bus ride along in the midst of their recently established meal delivery program. You can find her incredibly well-written article about the experience here!

We rode Bus 22, driven by Reese Trimm. Starting only last week after the closure of schools, the buses have been used to deliver meals to youth all across Del Norte County. They include breakfast and lunch, but sometimes they provide even more food: case in point, the Monday after the following weekend (the one coming up) is a Professional Development day, which would mean the buses will not be running its meal delivery route. So, they encouraged each and every parent and student on Thursday to bring a bag or backpack the next day, so that they could provide double the amount of meals to make up for Monday’s absence. This program is determined to not let children go without food!

On the first day, Reese Trimm, who keeps track of how many kids are receiving food, said that her route delivered meals to 162 kids; the next day, 111; the day after, 146; and, on our ride along, in the span of roughly 2 hours from just one bus, Bus 22’s team delivered meals to 186 kids, totaling at 372 meals.

Paige Swan, Crescent Elk Middle School’s principal, also joined us for this ride with the specific goal to hand out ungraded enrichment worksheets to students from Kindergarten to 8th Grade. These would help keep students occupied in an educational manner so that the closure of schools did not impact their progress too heavily. Paige Swan also informed us that the following week, similar worksheets would be created for high school and preschool students.

As this process goes on, changes are being made further and further to encourage the use of this program and assist in making it more accessible. DNUSD Transportation Director Derrick Campbell spoke to us about an app called “Here Comes the Bus” that would allow parents to track the progress of the buses on their routes, in order to ensure added safety and convenience. Update: the district has established their code for the app! If you’re interested in using it, download the app and input 86992 to track buses in real time!

Below, you can find the video to this ride along:

This experience is just one example of how our community has banded together in this time of worry and panic, in our distancing and closures amidst COVID-19. We are hoping this is only the beginning of many projects documenting these kinds of events. If you have any information or would like us to highlight other organizations taking actions like these to help in these times, please comment below and we’ll follow up with you!

As those who follow our social media accounts may know (namely our Facebook, Instagram, & YouTube channel, all linked in case you’ve been missing out), the start of a new year brought about the start of a new Redwood Voice!

The first month and a half of this experience has had its ups and downs as any organization would, but so far we have seen it as overwhelmingly positive. Alongside a resounding reception from the community excited for Redwood Voice to be jumping back into the fray of journalism and media activism, we’ve properly introduced our current team on our YouTube channel in a short miniseries, began a regularly occurring series dedicated to archiving the Del Norte Unified School District Board Meetings in the wake of difficulty attending them and complaints that the information does not easily reach those who miss the meetings, and our typical event filming in which we broadcast amazing occurrences in our community, like this year’s Women’s March. This is further paired with the gathering of news for KFUG Community Radio’s bi-weekly (every two weeks in this case, just to be clear!) newscast, which is comprised of the Redwood Voice team. We also have numerous projects being planned behind the scenes that include further connecting Redwood Voice to our audience and dipping into new forms of media we’ve not previously explored.

Of course, these new and exciting changes will all come with time. There are still items on the table being considered and issues being resolved. As you may have noticed, for instance, the rate that videos are edited has shown slight limitations. Though we are able to produce videos we are proud of that demonstrate events and stories in full, some have shown a tendency to be late, a problem due to the fact there is only one current video editor who must thoroughly edit every video. That same video editor attends these events, films them, interviews people if necessary, compiles all the useful footage, troubleshoots any issues that may have come up during filming, edits the video, looks up any necessary information to proof-check what’s going on and provide correct info, spreads it, connects it to the people involved, and starts the next one. Then they manage all the social media accounts and write articles, like the one you’re reading now. And of course, with one member being a full time college student and another working a second job, roles are continuously being configured and chosen.

This has lead to a clear solution we are hoping to soon explore, but with which we won’t share much more information until our plan is perfectly streamlined: expanding the Redwood Voice team. Although we will not be sharing more until we know more about our situation in utmost certainty, if you or somebody you know is interested in journalism and media, namely youth in the community, please reach out! (One of the improvements coming soon to our website will be configuring the sign-up sheet for joining Redwood Voice.)

In the meantime, we will be continuing to clean up Redwood Voice. Our website, for example, has taken a bit of polishing just to get where it is now, and will continue to require some work. Most work thus far has had to do with conflicted coding on the website that has made links malfunction and strange glitches occur, such as crediting authors incorrectly. Additionally, we’ve been removing outdated information, which still requires work. For example, if you look on our radio tab shortly after this article comes out, you will see advertisements for radio shows that haven’t existed in quite a long time. You may also notice the cover photo of our website pictures people who are no longer members of Redwood Voice with an older logo. So, we have some work to do! Credited authors, our tagging system, and the format of many articles will be configured to provide a more enjoyable experience to our audience. All the same, we wish to add more content here! This means that even though we will be continuing to repair and clean up the website, we will soon be posting articles and linking videos in the coming days!

We are incredibly thankful for the support of the community and are excited to be continually growing!