The October 2017 North Bay fires left thousands of households with the daunting tasks of navigating insurance claims, disaster recovery assistance like FEMA, and the rebuilding or relocating process. As a result, Legal Aid of Sonoma County established a Disaster Relief Services Program, providing outreach...
La Plaza launched into action in 2018, just one year after Sonoma County was hit by catastrophic fires and heading into some of our most challenging years with more fires, historic floods, and a years-long pandemic. Yet the nonprofit, a project grown from a leadership...
On September 27th, 2020, Jessica Henson watched her TV all day, keeping up with news of the Glass Fire slowly spreading west from where it ignited in Napa County before dawn. She saw smoke rising in the distance from where she lived in one of...
It's been just over five years since the Tubbs and Nuns fires changed life as we knew it in Sonoma County. We launched the Sonoma County Resilience Fund knowing that while the immediate needs would be great, our community needed a fund that would be...
In March 2020, everything changed. Nearly overnight, the nonprofit organizations that act as Sonoma County's safety net faced a crisis like no other: how to help the thousands of people who suddenly lost jobs or faced other economic hardships survive the widespread closures, how to...
At CFSC, as we worked to innovate our grantmaking in light of the coronavirus crisis, we asked a critical question: How could we inspire more people to give? We knew our regional affiliates—Healdsburg Forever and the Sonoma Valley Fund—were already doing incredible work in their local...
Growing economic uncertainty is stretching local nonprofits to their limits. They’re working hard to help an influx of new clients who need support physically, mentally, and financially. The sharp rise in the cost of living has led to financial stress among low-income families struggling to make...
During a year characterized in so many ways by tragedy, change, and heartbreak, Community Foundation Sonoma County has responded to what feels like never-ending cycles of disaster brought on by seasons of wildfires and a pandemic. At the same time, we’ve witnessed daily examples of...
For people living on the remote stretches of the North Coast of Sonoma County, it can be challenging to find social and other services. This reality, along with the sense of isolation that comes with rural living, was compounded while the nation sheltered-in-place during the...
Since local coronavirus infections were first detected in spring 2020, Sonoma County’s Latinx community has been disproportionately affected. Comprising roughly 30% of our population, Latinx people were hit with more than 60% of Covid infections over the last year. Although several local organizations worked to offer...