It's getting from bad to worse over at the Truckee Meadows Parks Foundation, with full-time staff and AmeriCorps Volunteers now being let go. After its executive director Heidi Anderson was fired last week over alleged financial mismanagement and kids camps were abruptly ended this week, board member Laura Fillmore explained the situation in more details to camp families.
"The board of directors of the Truckee Meadows Parks Foundation has had to make a series of heartbreaking decisions this week, and yesterday we had to notify our AmeriCorps Volunteers that their service will be ending at the end of next week," she indicated. "Also heartbreaking, we had to lay off full-time staff members at TMPF because of financial mismanagement. We were deceived, and take responsibility for our lack of oversight and we are sorry."
Fillmore said there are efforts with local partners to revive the camps, worrying about disrupted schedules of working families.
"Community members keep stepping up. We called Sierra Nevada Journeys because they have a camp at Rosewood, and the conversation turned to solutions. The Toiyabe Group has been advising us, and in their talks with SNJ leadership there's new thinking about the possibilities and collaborations that can sustain the core of what the Parks Foundation is to this community: stewardship and education," she wrote.
"One of our board members has worked on getting our campers places at Andelin Family Farms. It is free for TMPF families, campers would have to bring their own lunches, (and we understand your kids love the Idlewild camp), please let us know if you would like to explore this offer--we do need to help them prepare for more students," she added as a possible solution.
"I visited Idlewild yesterday and left wishing I'd met all the AmeriCorps volunteers and staff on a much better day--they are so perceptive and tender, young and smart. AmeriCorps members as teachers, inspiring wonder alongside their younger peers in a sunlit building surrounded by a grassy municipal forest, and bordered by a still-wild river...learning all day by doing...an ordinary summer camp day," she wrote about letting go of volunteers.
Fillmore concluded her letter asking for patience. Investigations are ongoing concerning Anderson's dismissal.
