Maria Davis, Helping the LatinX Community and Students During a Pandemic

The #MiMotivoNV Outreach Program

A recent post in Spanish on #MiMotivoNV says four laptops are available for kids who need them, as local schools continue to offer a combination of hybrid and in person classes, with some families having opted to go all remote. Self-employed and passionate about community, Maria Davis has poured lots of her own time these past few months in endeavors to help others during these difficult times.

Davis recently relaunched "#MiMotivoNV, as an outreach program to help with any resources needed during the ongoing pandemic.

“I would describe it as something I do because I care,” Davis told Our Town Reno. “I have continued because my promise with the community had just started, and I wasn't about to just, you know, quit because of budget or politics or whatever happened and just leave everybody hanging. So it's an outreach from the heart.”

#MiMotivoNV was set into motion after Davis says she realized the Washoe County Emergency Response Program had a lack of awareness for Reno’s Hispanic and LatinX community.

“I do know that there is a lot of ignorance when it comes to understanding the culture in our community. Not only the LatinX Community, but in general. To this day, I mean, there's still this ignorance of oh my gosh. I mean, seriously, it's beyond me that we are not going beyond what the job description says, and I'm sure this is in their job description because to be an emergency response manager for a county, you have to know that county in order to know how to develop a plan. Otherwise, how are you going to develop an effective plan? ...They're not taking the time to go out there and really get to know the community,” she said.

“They're not really willing to incorporate everyone and include everyone to really work together as one. There must be a sense of inclusiveness when offering resources to accomplish effectiveness.”

Davis has distributed banners and started hashtags

Acting as a Cultural Bridge and Convincing Parents to be More Involved

Davis wants to help anyone she can that is vulnerable but she says she has discovered that Hispanic and LatinX communities are often pushed to the bottom of the totem pole.

“A lot of people don't understand the culture,” she said. “A lot of people don't understand that to do outreach is to create relationships in the community. I care for my community. I care for the people and not only for the Hispanics but the community in general. We let politics get in the way, and we don't see the real needs. . .  or maybe we see it, but we are just afraid that we are going to make people upset, communities, so we don't do it.” 

Davis is also a driver of the Be an Angel private group on Facebook, which connects people with students to provide them with essential school supplies.

On the school front, Davis believes parental involvement is a place where progress can also be made. Many parents may not be aware of the resources available to them through the school district or even the power they have.

 “If we promote parent involvement in our community to let the parents know, ‘hey you have a voice,’ because some of us come from countries where parents don't have a voice in their children's education, parents stay at home and send the kids to school and then it is a job for the teachers to teach them, but in this case, we know that when a parent is involved in their children's education, the probabilities for success are much higher. Teachers can't do it all, schools can’t do it all, and parents can’t do it all, so they all have to work together.” 

Striving for local self-reliance has always been one of her driving mantras. “Our community is amazing, and even when the people that are supposed to be responding for us don't respond to us. We are here for each other, and we will continue to be here for each other,” Davis said. “I believe that. That has always been the case for our Hispanic Community. We always come together in times of need, and I'm not shy at asking for help when it comes to helping others in our community. So funding does not come from the government, it comes from the community, comes from myself, and from those around me.”

A Long Standing Concern

Her involvement in school and community outreach, while trying to bring about positive progress, dates back years. In 2008, Davis participated in a program called Study Circles, during which, for seven weeks, a group of parents, administrators, and teachers, that represented the demographics of the school met and discussed some complicated issues.

“We talked about race and stereotypes, and it was a tough topic for many people, but it was successful. Only once did a parent become upset and leave because he did not feel comfortable with the topic. But I feel that a lot of what is going on right now, it’s more than racism; its ignorance. Ignorant people sometimes say things or do things, not intentionally. Not because they're racist, but because of stereotypes.”

Davis says she will continue to be a voice for a community she believes is too often silenced.

“I do it because I care it’s as simple as that. I really really care, and I grew up in a very small town,” she said in our interview. “I'm an immigrant. I know what it's like to be in a strange country, not knowing the language. I know what it's like when people look down at you. I know what it's like to have to walk the longer road to success. I know that, but I also know that our people have so much courage and that they have so many opportunities in this country and their children, especially. I do it because they (people in the Hispanic and LatinX community) have to be able to provide and complete their own dreams and not just have dreams for their kids. It's simple; I do it because I'm blessed, and I am so happy to be able to share blessings.”

Reporting by Gracie Gordon for Our Town Reno

The Reno Skate Alliance, Passing on the Love of Community Skateboarding

Turning Kids into Skaters and Creating a Positive Community

As the sun begins to set on North Valleys Regional Park, and as White Rabbit, by Jefferson Airplane, plays out of the speaker standing in the truck of Eddie Washington’s white pick-up, members of the Reno Skate Alliance attempt another skating maneuver.

“There's lots of bad stuff out there in the world,” the founder Eddie Washington explains as to why he wants to motivate kids with skateboarding. “When you're on a skateboard, you're not thinking about anything besides skateboarding, you know, you're not caught up with things; other people around you. You're just doing you, and that's what we want the kids to be about. Stay away from the bad stuff, all the negative stuff. I think it's a really good outlet for kids. And then also that it teaches them hard work and determination; skating is not something you can just do easily. And so they really have to like work for it and progress constantly.” 

The Reno Skate Alliance has not only been a place for young aspiring skaters to become friends but also a place for Washington to make friends as well. Spencer and Sam Eldridge became intrigued about Reno Skate Alliance, thinking it would be a good program for their son, Oliver.

“We joined because we wanted a community for our son. We saw how much he loves skateboarding, and we took him to the ski park, but there was never really like other kids his age that he could connect with. And I grew up skateboarding as well. And you know, there is nothing like this, you know? I'm a Reno local. It's hard to get out there when you're a kid; there are not many people to talk to, you know? It was definitely different, you know, growing up as a kid compared to now,” Spencer Eldridge said.

The Eldridges have become vital components to the Skate Alliance, with Sam managing its social media, and Spencer helping Washington out with coaching.

The Reno Skate Alliance thrives on mutual support and the deep connection of knowing the rush of finally landing a trick. “It's kinda like in baseball when you get a home run, you know, it's like, you've been practicing for all this time, and you've never got a home run. It's kind of like getting home really, you know, you're like, Oh my gosh, try it again. And again and again, until you get it, you know, we always say, you know, it's the kind of a celebration of watching my son learn new tricks. It'll be like 20 or 30 times of trying the same thing. Once he actually lands it, It's like the whole skate park goes wild,” Spencer Eldridge said.

Feeling Accomplished Despite the Setbacks of COVID-19

“I mean, it hits you. You get, especially when trying something new and having like 15 people just watching, especially when you got that many people just supporting you and you land it, it's just, it's an awesome feeling,” Washington said of the pride everyone shares as a member progresses.

Just as Reno Skate Alliance began to grow in popularity, Covid-19 hit. “We did try to do some distance things when COVID hit, but we eventually had to shut everything down,” Sam Eldridge said.

Now slowly getting back into a new groove, the Reno Skate Alliance is seeking help from the community. “I think that it's really a great resource for the community right now, especially with COVID and so many indoor activities and restrictions, but it can only work if the community is involved.  On our Instagram, we have like a little logo, and it says “by the community for the community,” so really it's like whenever the community wants to come together and what they put into the skaters’ lives, the Skate Alliance will  just turn that around and put it back into the community.”

They’ve organized family picnics, and received donations such as used or new boards, bearings, trucks, wheels and hardware, helmets and pads, and are open to all help via their Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/RenoSkates/

Reporting and Photography by Gracie Gordon for Our Town Reno

Achievement Beyond Obstacles Supports Students Overcoming Hardships

Helping a Range of Student Overcoming Huge Odds

In a typical year, ABO awards scholarships that range from $500-$3,500 to both first-year and continuing students attending universities, community colleges and trade schools. In total, the scholarship program awards about $45,000 to around 15 nominated and selected students each year.

According to its About description on Facebook, the Achievement Beyond Obstacles “is a scholarship program for high school seniors who have overcome hardships and demonstrated personal leadership.”

One recipient it recently touted is Lauren Mazurowski, a graduate student at UNR, who received an ABO scholarship every year of her college career. She is now the president of the Student Association for International Water Issues, for which she plans annual trips to help struggling communities around the world with access to potable water.

“These seniors are nominated by their high school counselors because they have triumphed over some kind of hardship,” Kim Mazeres, a member of the Youth Services Committee with Rotary District 5190, explained to Our Town Reno. “Yet these students have also demonstrated personal leadership, courage, academic improvement and want to go to college.”

The hardships ABO Scholarship recipients face often vary from student to student. 

“Five years ago we had a student who was homeless,” Mazeres said. “She and her brothers were couch-surfing and she not only graduated high school from Sparks High, but she was bound and determined to go to UNR as a journalism student. She completed her degree this summer and during her college career, had a baby and got married.”

Other students Mazeres said have faced other challenges such as cancer, incarceration or may have previously dropped out of school and came back to earn their diploma. Due to the unique challenges many of these students face, the program has expanded in recent years to include a mandatory “Leadership Weekend,” a two-day workshop where students undergo professional and personal leadership seminars. 

Kim Mazeres (right) poses proudly with a scholarship recipient.

The Value of its Leadership Weekend Component

“[ABO] was originally a scholarship program where a handful of students were given about a thousand dollars each,” Mazeres said. “But as we've seen these students’ needs, we started a Leadership Weekend that is all about personal leadership for the students and understanding that they're not alone with the problems they face. It is run by a couple of professional trainers and students have to attend because we believe they are more successful at college once they go through that program.”

The Leadership Weekend has been a part of ABO for over five years now and includes a financial literacy workshop so students can understand how to budget and manage the cost of college. Students from TMCC and UNR serve as mentors as well, providing the incoming students a chance to see the campus and hear what it’s like to be a college student. 

“[The Leadership Weekend] gives them a great base for going into college,” Mazeres said. “It's all about personal leadership and knowing that if they've come this far, they can overcome whatever is in their path to be successful and begin to grow their network around them.”

A Facebook screengrab includes a recent photo with Reno City Council member Oscar Delgado.

Adapting to COVID-19

ABO, like nonprofits all across the country, has had to adapt to the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Typically, the Leadership Weekend for nominated students would take place in late October or early November. Then students would have an opportunity to give a presentation to the Rotary Clubs about their background and academic goals in late March, before a final selection of recipients is determined. 

But this past spring, due to the country-wide lockdowns, last year’s selection process had to be modified.  

“We thought about [using] Zoom [for student presentations], but all of us were new to Zoom in that mid-March timeframe so we hesitated,” Mazeres said. “This year, we wouldn't hesitate to Zoom. All of our Rotary clubs have gotten very adept at using Zoom for meetings. So we may be able to do something more with the students via Zoom this year when it comes to presentations.”

In place of the standard student-presentation process for selection, this year ABO transitioned to a purely application-based process. Of particular note is that ABO awarded $21,500 in scholarships to 16 first-year students, the most first-year recipients they’ve had in recent years. 

“I can't remember the last time we gave scholarships to 16 first-year students,” Mazeres said. “The scholarships may have been a little smaller because it was tougher to pick a standout student or a couple of standout students when you hadn't seen them as much in-person, but it was easier to know that they are all deserving. So we actually gave out more first-year scholarships than we normally do because of the pandemic.”

ABO scholarships are not just for first-year students, however. Recipients are eligible to re-apply for the scholarship each year to continue their education at their college or university, or even continue their education by pursuing a Master’s or other professional degree. 

Tougher Than Ever Before with Looming Evictions

“Last year, we gave $25,500 in scholarships to 14 continuing students,” Mazeres said. “Furthermore, we now have two students in graduate school and one that's entering law school.”

Mazeres cites one young woman who received an ABO scholarship that is now pursuing her Master’s degree after completing her Environmental Engineering degree. She was recently rewarded a six-figure fellowship as part of her Master’s program.

“She came from a situation where her dad had a specific type of dementia,” Mazeres said. “She and her brothers took care of their dad after school so mom could work, and mom had not worked before then. She now gives back to the program and has come back to talk to students about everything they can accomplish and everything that is possible for them.”

Recipients of ABO Scholarships have come from each of the high schools in the Washoe County School District. With the onset of hybrid-learning that most schools have implemented for the 2020-2021 academic year, there originally were concerns about high school counselors being able to identify prospective students for this year’s ABO program. 

“We were worried about our counselors not being able to nominate students, given the weirdness that they've been through for the last six months,” Mazeres said. “But the counselors are all rockstars. They've already told us, ‘I’ve got my students in mind and know what I'm doing, so when you're ready, we'll be ready.’”

ABO is still currently exploring options on how they will conduct this year’s Leadership Weekend and student presentations. But like everyone else during the COVID-19 pandemic, they are learning to adapt and have taken inspiration during this time from the students themselves.

“I think our students have it tougher now than ever before, whether it's parents that are without work because of COVID or had been without work and are struggling to pay bills,” Mazeres said. “Then with the eviction moratoriums that they’re going to be staring down as well, I just think there's more need [for ABO scholarships] than ever before. So those of us who are able to help our society, our community and our young people to assist them in becoming the absolute best versions of themselves is not only good for them, but it's good for our entire community.”

Reporting by Scott King for Our Town Reno

Earstin Whitten, Turning a Reno Parking Lot into a Model for Growing Healthy Food

Teaching the Less Fortunate a Path to Healthy, Sustainable Eating

“We want to teach them how to plant, cultivate, to harvest, and to cook the products that they have grown,” Earstin Whitten, the founder and president of Soulful Seeds, explains of his goals to help people without many resources cultivate and consume their own healthy food.

Located downtown on a tiny plot once destined to become a parking lot, right behind Planned Parenthood, Soulful Seeds is a non-profit gardening organization focused on growing healthy and organic food for those in need, distributing to shelters, as well as teaching gardening skills through partnerships with recovery programs.

“When they get out of that homeless situation they should be able to to have some basic understanding of how things grow,” Whitten said of his goal of empowering the less fortunate with the skills to grow their own food.

Beginning in 2017, Whitten acquired the 1000 square foot plot from the Saint Mary’s Regional Medical Center and began growing vegetables there. He has since expanded to nearly twenty gardening boxes which now overflow with vegetables. Nearing the end of the growing season, on a recent fall day, Whitten was planting his favorite plant, garlic.

A volunteer was working on a nearby garden bed. "When we grow food for other people, we have to grow what they like,” Whitten said as he proudly showed tomatoes, Swiss chard, eggplants, tomatillos, and kale.

A pink Brandywine heirloom tomato grown by Whitten. He is now growing over 1000 heads of garlic with his own seed stock which he will harvest next July.

Expanding Operations

Next spring, Whitten plans to expand his operations onto a two acre lot located on Glendale Avenue. This will increase the amount of food he can grow, he says, and get into the mouths of those who need it most.

Whitten also works with the Reno Food Systems, bringing produce to them several times a week, so they can then donate food to the Record St. and Our Place shelters.

Whitten says he has kept expenses to a minimum. His initial investments were out of his own pocket and he relies heavily on donations, “and most of it is in kind donations,” he said. His garden boxes are filled with organic soil created locally in Carson Valley by Full Circle Compost, which he receives at a discounted rate.  He got his original seed garlic from a farmer in nearby Washoe Valley.

While he has had to reduce the number of volunteers this year due to the pandemic, they have also been pivotal to Soulful Seeds. Whitten has been working with an engineer and developer on the new property who will be “donating their services to do the survey,” he said.

Many of the garden beds have been donated and create a maze like atmosphere within the downtown garden.

Working Through Many Avenues to Expand Access to Healthy Eating

Soulful Seeds recently received a grant from the City of Reno through the CARES Act, which he says will be used to expand purchases he also makes from the Great Basin Community Food Co-op for additional food donations.

He also wants to purchase Instant Pots, which are small pressure cookers, to allow people to cook their own healthy meals.

“These Instant Pots are very versatile and they will allow them to cook a full meal in one pot,” he said. “There are a lot of people and organizations that want to contribute to the less fortunate. We are a conduit for that because people who donate can literally see where their funds go,” Whitten said.

Knowing he needs to be well connected in the community to make his vision become a reality, he is also on the Board of Directors for the Great Basin Community Food Co-op.

“One of my missions, since joining that group, was to make sure that populations that don’t go to the store have an opportunity for organically grown food,” he said.

Reporting and Photography by Richard Bednarski for Our Town Reno

Seth Bradley, On an Eatery and its Staff Trying to Stay Afloat during the Pandemic

Feeling Helped

During the era of Covid-19, the uncertainty of the future is sadly a much too common theme among workers.

At Liberty Food and Wine Exchange, on Sierra St., which bills itself as an artisan eatery, bar, catering company and wholesale distributor, management initially wanted to make sure employees knew they weren’t an afterthought despite all the financial struggles for everyone.

The downtown neighborhood business handed out food and also resources for employees to try and stay afloat.

“They helped us like sit down,” Bradley said. “And lent us a bunch of laptops so, if we wanted to sign up for unemployment there, we could. Or if like someone wasn't able to get access to a laptop, as they could just do it there. That was like mid-March, like the day after restaurants shut down, that was their initial response.”

Bradley, who has been with Liberty since February 2019, said extra precautions were also taken during the re-opening process.

“Coming back from quarantine; they waited like an extra week. I want to say after restaurants were allowed to open back up, just so that they were able to see how other businesses were doing it. So they could be, they could do it the right way, I guess they want to make sure everything was safe for everybody.” 

Liberty has been heavily promoting its online ordering options, like here on its Facebook page.

Adapting to Fewer In Person Customers and the Perils of COVID-19

Despite re-opening for dine-in, Liberty witnessed a lack of in person costumers.

“At the start, like, it was definitely a hit.... It was just really, really slow going,” Bradley said of the initial re-opening. “Our hours of operation used to be  11 to 9, and then we were just so slow and dead in the mornings. And I think we were losing money in the mornings. And so we changed our entire hours of operation. We started to get creative...on the weekends, Liberty got approval from the city, and so we have some tables out there that help to maintain social distancing, then that makes it a little more normal for everybody. Like the restaurants are busy and vibrant again on the weekends.”  

There are new challenges for servers though. Whether it’s people refusing to obey county guidelines or having to interact with a myriad of different people, Bradley confesses his fear of the virus.

“I’m around people without masks on all the time,” Bradley said. I'm the only one that's wearing a mask when I go to a table, and I'm just surrounded by like, let's say six people, and I talked to all of them in close quarters.  I'm more worried about getting older people sick,  so I try not to visit grandparents or my parents too often.”

Despite the number of cases still high in Washoe County, Bradley says he’s noticed people slacking off in terms of their discipline. “When we first opened up, people were totally wearing masks,” he said. “They were sitting down and continuing to wear their mask, only taking it off to eat and trying to be as safe as possible. And now some people just really don't care. And so they'll try to come in the restaurant without a mask or go to the bathroom without a mask, or try to talk to other tables. We have a six-person limit at a table per Governor Sisolak’s orders, and people just don't want to listen to that. They'll get mad at us for trying to enforce the rules that we need to follow to stay open. . . . It's difficult because we are trying to find a balance between accommodating all of our guests and also adhering to the rules that we have to. And  sometimes they clash, and it gets a little difficult, but overall it's been pretty good, and most people are very understanding.”

Through the uncertainty, Bradley remains positive. He has faith in Liberty’s response and their ability to persevere through the unknown of the “Covid era.” Above all, Bradley admires the community that Liberty has built within itself while also attempting to give back to the city of Reno.

“Liberty's response is very community-oriented,” he said. “They wanted to give the employees food first and then second, they had a program, Delivering with Dignity Reno/Sparks, going on that if you're in the industry and you're struggling, you can just like come to Liberty, where we would just hand out free meals to people that needed it. So, I feel like it's just like pursuing more in the community, I guess. And like having each other's back.”

Reporting by Gracie Gordon for Our Town Reno

From Teaching to Activism and Arts, Shaughn Richardson Making Reno Better for All

A Community Leader Steps Up

Outside of the classroom and his day job, which keeps him plenty busy, during these chaotic times of COVID-19 and forest fire haze, Richardson, 38, has remained engaged in several community projects and organizations, including sitting on the board of the Reno Arts and Culture Commission, hosting the Up in the Mix podcast and a radio show of the same name on KWNK on Friday nights and also helping with The Holland Project, a youth-centered organization with a music space, an art gallery and a workshop area.

“I've been on the board for [The Holland Project] for over five years and I personally do a fundraising Art Show every year with local artists focused on hip-hop and lyricism. [The Holland Project] is really focused on civic engagement, art, and just getting youth more involved in society and that's one of our main goals,” Richardson said.

“We've done workshops in the past based on sexual harassment, voting and civic engagement and through that we work with several other organizations and that's been one of the ways I tried to connect people who were trying to make a difference in the community.”

Connections made through his time with The Holland Project and other organizations at times puts him at the forefront of community activism. Earlier this summer, Richardson was asked to speak at a vigil held in Reno supporting the Black Lives Matter movement. Although he is not directly or officially associated with Black Lives Matter, Richardson views it as his duty to make Reno a better community to live in for everybody. 

“Through those organizations and the people I know, I try and network with people who want to make a difference,” Richardson said. “Whether that's by getting police reform or whatever it is, I’m just trying to connect like-minded people into situations where they can make a difference or getting them in touch with someone who can, because I might not necessarily be that person but I do know others who are.”

Richardson was, however, a part of a group that met with City Councilman Oscar Delgado to put police reform issues on the agenda.

“I was a part of a group that pushed for some specific changes with the Reno Police Department and their use of force policies,” Richardson said. “We met with councilman Oscar Delgado to try and get some of the reforms on the agenda and highlight some of the disparities and shortcomings in the Reno Police Department, specifically, and they did change some of their policies.”

Their discussions included the GUINN Report, which was a study on community policing conducted by the Washoe County Sheriff’s office, Reno PD, Sparks PD, Councilman Delgado and Dr. Angie Taylor several years ago, full of recommendations.

“I don't know that lasting change has been made because I don't think they have metrics or any way to measure what changes have been done,” Richardson said. “The lack of transparency and data to show that they're doing what they say they're doing is what's lacking and missing. Until that is provided or they can come up with these metrics, I don't really think you can [say progress has been made].”

“In addressing the discrepancies within the Reno Police Department, they need to better their hiring practices because there was a culture of intimidation found there and there's a higher attrition rate with officers of color,” Richardson said of changes that need to be made. Photo with permission to use courtesy of Cesar Lopez.

Progress Needed On Many Fronts in Reno

Richardson sees links between changing our policing but also how local schools operate.

“That's one of the things I would like to see for the school district, too. There's a petition that was started by students for a change in the English curriculum to feature more authors of color. This is a minority-majority school district and they need to take steps to address some of these cultural biases in their curriculum because they don't feature people of color or authors of color.”

An additional change Richardson would like to see is more hiring of diverse teachers, as students are proven to succeed better in the classroom with a teacher they can relate to. 

“There needs to be a plan to get more teachers in the education system who are people of color because studies have shown that [minority] students do better when they have a teacher of color,” Richardson said. “There needs to be more done with diversity and inclusion training and implicit-bias training for all of our institutions. We need more diversity and more representation, whether it's on the school board, the city council, or our police. That's something that as Reno grows, they're going to have to look at and address.”

The About page of the podcast he runs with Cesar Lopez has this bio: “Shaughn Richardson, aka The Truth, is a teacher, coach, poet and musician along with co-hosting Up In The Mix. The Bay Area Native has lived in the Reno/Sparks area for over 20 years, where he attended the University of Nevada Reno and earned a degree in Psychology and Philosophy. After working a corporate desk job that killed his soul for a couple years, he eventually returned to the University of Nevada to earn a Master's degree in Education. He now teaches middle school Social Studies, coaches basketball and volleyball, and raps in the local Hip Hop band 7-Out. “

Surviving a Chaotic School Year

As a school teacher in the age of COVID, Shaughn Richardson has had to regularly adapt to various learning-style approaches for his students.

“You can't prepare for what you don't know, so I think [the Washoe County School District] wasted an opportunity with that by hoping to be in-person,” Richardson said of the start of the school year. “I also think more people signed up for distance-learning than they anticipated or they just weren't realistic of what it would take to make distance-learning meaningful and successful with as many people that were going to [choose] it.”

In a field where long-term planning is essential for his students to understand content and for him to do his job effectively, his job is further complicated by what he and other teachers view as a lack of direction from the Washoe County School District.

“[The School District] made the final decision to open schools two weeks before school started, but then they gave parents the choice of whether or not to sign up for distance learning or to do in-person learning,” Richardson said. “A lot of parents took their time with that [decision], so you had basically a week or less trying to figure out numbers in the logistics of what students were going to be where and doing what. It just wasn't enough time [for teachers to plan effectively] and they could have done it if [the School District] had planned it out further or delayed starting in-person.”

Despite the late notice of a mixed, hybrid approach, Richardson says he and his colleagues at Washoe Inspire Academy have handled distance-learning for their students better than last spring, when the COVID-19 outbreak forced an abrupt transition to distance-learning. 

“At my school, we're doing much better [with distance-learning than in the spring],” Richardson said. “It's easier to start the school year that way with expectations for distance learning so that students can come in and know that this is how it's going to be, rather than switching to it abruptly during a break. We have teachers and administrators and staff who have learned from the spring what works and what doesn't work and how to improve [distance learning].”

Particularly with exclusionary policies that have been enacted as a precaution for students showing possible COVID-related symptoms, that classroom can become a revolving door of sorts. At one point earlier this year, he says nearly a third of his students were excluded from in-person learning due to COVID-19 precautions.

“[The School District] is being overly cautious, but at the same time, for most students we just get an email saying those students are going to do distance-learning and there's no time to prepare for it or anything,” Richardson said. “[The students] are not allowed to come in [to the school], so there's no transition and if they're gone for two weeks that's a difficult thing when you constantly have that happening: kids leaving and coming back from distance-learning to in-person education and having to keep track of those students and who's going to be responsible for working with them. These are the unintended consequences from the decisions that are being made and the burden is being placed on administrators, teachers, parents and families dealing with a lack of planning by the decision-makers.”

Richardson stresses that many schools like his are prepared to support students during distance-learning, as long as those expectations are established ahead of time. “The key is to set expectations regardless of whether they’re in class or not,” Richardson said. “If we tell them the day before that tomorrow might be a smoke day, we can make sure we have devices they can check out. Then we schedule phone calls and make sure we tell them to check their email so we can check in with them when they're doing distance-learning.”

A New Wrench with the Smoke and Using New Tools

This school year and its hybrid approach, however, has been further complicated by the smoke days caused by the wildfires spreading throughout the region. At the time of our interview with Richardson, his school has had nine smoke days already this year. Consequently, over a third of the school days so far this year have been all distance-learning.

 “The wrench that's really been thrown into all this is the smoke,” Richardson said. “It's impossible as a classroom teacher to prepare meaningful lessons when you don't know if you're going to be in-person or online in a day or two. Teaching is all about long-term planning and making sure your lessons flow and build upon what students have learned. There's so much planning that goes into it that and when every single day, you're not sure how you're going to be teaching the next day, it makes it harder and limits your options of what to do. So everyone's just having to adjust on the fly and I don’t think anybody is happy about the current situation from parents all the way to the school board.”

Although besides the challenges COVID and the smoke days have brought to this school year, one resource that has proven to work well for Richardson’s students is an online program called Edgenuity. His school introduced the program to their students during the 2019-2020 academic year, prior to the COVID outbreak in the spring. 

“We used [Edgenuity] last year for all of our students prior to COVID hitting, so we made the decision to keep it this year based on the fact that we could be going back and forth between in-person and distance-learning,” Richardson said. “Now it's easier for us to switch back and forth because [students] are using the computer program regardless. When we're in-person, we can augment and help them with their lessons and content and then they can go home and do the computer lessons on their own. So it's been easier for us with this transition than for other schools and students are adaptable if you give them a heads up and there's clear expectations of what's expected of them.”

“Things are tough now, but I think there's a lot of people in this community who are working hard to improve things and make sure Reno keeps growing, getting better and making Reno a great place to live,” Richardson said. “If you want to get involved, there's so many different ways to. There's so many people out there doing it and it doesn't take anything special. You don't have to have a lot of money or any special talent, you just have to have the desire to get involved and make your community better.” Photo with his podcast and radio co-host Cesar Lopez provided with permission to use by Cesar Lopez.

Many Challenges for Students at Home and Teachers Pulled in So Many Directions

That doesn’t mean, however, that there aren’t a variety of challenges for students learning from home. 

“There are some students who don't have devices or they have siblings, meaning they have to share a device,” Richardson said. “That's a problem a lot of schools are running into is that if there's two, three or four kids in a house, not everyone's going to have that many devices. So luckily we have the resources to be able to provide them for our students, but I know not all schools have that resource. But [distance-learning] is not an ideal situation because for those students who don't have a device or don't have Internet at home, it just makes the burden harder for them to learn.”

Moving forward in the school year, Richardson hopes to see not only more patience and realistic expectations for teachers navigating the COVID-era classroom, but also for the School District to recognize the unintended consequences of their last-minute decision to re-open schools with an opt-out option.

“[The School District] really needs to take the time to listen to teachers and administrators who are in the school buildings, the ones actually trying to produce the content and the lessons for the students,” Richardson said. “The job of the School District isn't to babysit kids, it's to educate them and to do that safely and effectively. So if that means we have to go full-distance-learning for a month or two, it's better to make that decision ahead of time so there's time to execute a plan and make sure you have everything that's needed, rather than doing what we're doing now.”

As he has increasingly taken on a role of community activism, Richardson views it as his obligation to make Reno a better place to live for him and his students.

“As a teacher, I feel like it's important to speak up and fight for what's right, especially as a social studies teacher so that's another thing that definitely motivates me,” Richardson said. “I love this community and I want to see it thrive and see it get better and better. Part of that is getting down in the trenches and working to make those things happen, because they're not going to happen on their own.”

Reporting by Scott King for Our Town Reno

Kyle Chandler-Isacksen, Building a Model City Cottage for Affordable Housing

A New Home in a Community Housing Land Trust

Kyle Chandler-Isacksen could be considered a visionary jack-of-all trades. We’ve featured him on Our Town Reno previously, helping with community murals, composting and garlic festivals. He also runs the non-profit Be The Change Reno, an urban learning space dedicated to service, sustainability, and community uplift.  Now, he’s built a house on 2000 McCloud Avenue, which has been placed in a community land trust, an economic model designed to lower the cost of owning a home.

He used locally sourced and milled lumber as the siding of the home, giving it a unique log cabin feel. His wife, Katie, established an organic garden, just steps from the spacious front porch.

The two-bedroom home is an experiment to create affordable housing and home ownership a reality for low-income families. The cost of the land is taken out of the home price and put into a trust to keep the cost of home ownership down. Isacksen believes “it's part of a broader solution” as the community struggles with an affordable and accessible housing crisis.

The siding is from locally sourced wood which according to Chandler-Isacksen was mostly salvaged from a local dump.

An Unbalanced Cost of Living with Stagnant Wages

“It’s not okay when people are paying 50% of their income for a place to live,” Chandler-Isacksen said about the unbalanced cost of living here in Reno. “When the rental rates are so much higher than ownership rates, it really affects the community.”

In partnership with the Community Foundation of Western Nevada, the home is only available for a low income family to purchase. With the average home cost in Reno past $460,000 now, homeownership is nearly impossible for the majority of people. This home was assessed at $275,000 but with the land cost taken out, the home will sell for about $225,000. As part of the land trust deal, the purchaser will not be required to put any money down which eliminates one of the biggest hurdles of home ownership. 

The house is about 1100 square feet and sits on a lot just shy of half an acre. The inside features a wide open floor plan with the kitchen, dining and living rooms making up one large room. The focal point is a beautiful spiral staircase which winds up to a spacious wood-lined loft.

Eco-Friendly Attributes

The house itself is extremely well insulated, utilizing rigid foam core insulation salvaged from Burning Man. Attendees of this annual event will buy this type of insulation to build cooling structures. After the event they simply throw it away. Chandler-Isacksen was able to salvage enough to fully insulate the home. 

“The siding is all locally sourced and locally milled wood. The majority of it is actually from the Truckee dump,” Chandler-Isacksen said. With a six kilowatt solar panel array, the house will run nearly net-zero in energy use. Furthermore, Chandler-Isacksen also reclaimed fence boards from the local Tholl Fence Company to build a fence that lines the property. 

Chandler-Isacksen is hopeful to get the house sold and occupied quickly, with an initial online application ending September 21st which was then extended to October 9th. He lives down the street and really enjoys the neighborhood. Located on an old parcel of Washoe County land that was annexed in the 1990s, it still has a rural feel, he says.

Reporting and Photos by Richard Bednarski for Our Town Reno

Jessi, Keeping the Generator Moving

Making Do with a New Temporary Spot

For the past seven years, the Generator, a non-profit which bills itself as an inclusive maker space, has been a go to spot to make large or small-scale art and become part of a community of metal and wood builders, muralists, textile and ceramic artists, sculptors and painters. The  organization recently closed its first location at 1240 Icehouse Avenue in Sparks after its lease there expired.

It recently opened a scaled down, smaller version of itself in the Reno Public Market, a retail complex that’s still under development at the former Shopper’s Square.

The maker organization still has over 150 members, and some are working on commission pieces, so they needed the new space as soon as possible.

“It's kinda rough because it's like an active construction space,” Jessi Janusee, the communications director said of the new location. “But it's awesome. They're giving it to us for really cheap and it's great to have a spot cause we were just not going to have one for a minute.” 

While still under construction, The Reno Public Market will temporarily house The Generator while they work on looking for a permanent, larger location.

Organizing a Survey and Zoom for the Future

The Generator has a survey online to get answers to best finetune its now uncertain future. There is also a planned forum about the organization’s plans to be held via Zoom on September 24th at 6 pm open to the public. (https://us02web.zoom.us/j/4336386342 / ID:  433 638 6342)

“I think we definitely want to make sure people realize that we're a space for anybody,” Janusee said as the Generator prepares for a bigger restart. “The Generator is for anyone who loves art, wants to try their hand at something new, or just be part of a growing and accepting community. And also you don't have to be an artist, you can even just come in and color. That's totally legit,” she said.

Reporting by Richard Bednarski for Our Town Reno

Nicola Ader, A Star UNR Student Athlete from Germany Finds Time to Give Back

From buying ingredients to preparing burritos and then passing them out on the streets of Reno, Nicola Ader, a five time UNR All-American track student athlete spends much of her weekends giving back, while getting her university degree and pursuing high level training. Before the 2020 college track and field was shut down due to the pandemic, Ader had won gold in the high jump at the Mountain West Championship, qualified for the NCAA Indoor Championship in the high jump, and broke UNR’s school record in the 60m hurdles.

From Southern Germany to Reno with Purpose

Born in a small town in southern Germany about three hours west of Munich, Ader is studying here in Reno on an athletic scholarship. Hoping to graduate this fall with a degree in Criminal Justice, she spent the summer training with lofty aspirations for her already well decorated track and field career. The COVID-19 pandemic put a stop to athletic competitions last Spring and more records and awards, but not to Ader’s drive. Unable to compete or train on campus anymore, Ader came up with a more flexible schedule which has also given her the time to volunteer with the ongoing Reno Burrito Project, handing out healthy meals on Sundays to our neighbors in need in the downtown corridor.

“I really try to make sure that I have at least Sunday off,” Ader said during a recent interview on campus. She says she struggled to find a purpose here as a foreign student. Beyond track and field, she wanted to find the right experience, she said, and was “always kind of passively waiting for an opportunity.” Then through her church, she met another UNR student, Ghanaian Blaize Akanaab Abuntori, and along with her roommate, she began volunteering with the Reno Burrito Project, which now also hands out hygiene kits as well as books.

“I could have reached out to more places and started helping the community earlier.” Ader says she wanted it to feel she was making an impact with the community and that there was a purpose behind her giving back, which she says she found with the Reno Burrito Project.

From the Kitchen to the Heat and Smoke Outside

The Reno Burrito Project now has nearly 40 active members and is currently seeking more donations. The group recently began a hygiene kit program focused on providing sanitary wipes and soap to area residents without stable shelter. Each week, the volunteer collective makes between 100 and 200 burritos. With a growing social media presence they are hopeful for more donations and in turn, more burritos and hygiene kits to pass out.

On a recent weekend, Nicola and two other members were efficiently rolling burritos in her kitchen, which serves as one of two used by the collective. Another volunteer was warming tortillas and placing them in front of each person on a stack of precut sheets of foil. Then the tortilla was filled with scoops of beans, meat, and rice. Next the tortilla was quickly folded and rolled up along with the tin foil. It was the epitome of an assembly line.

Afterward came the distribution. Ader unabashedly passed out burritos and water, stopping to talk to people living on the streets. She says she loves this part, the engagement, the learning more about the people and what brought them there. “I did something good. Just understanding the community and the entire situation of society,” she said. We passed through the old bus station and headed towards the Truckee river. 

As we wandered the streets the cooler’s wheels grinded on the sidewalk and became lighter in hand. It was not as hot as previous Sundays but the smoke form wildfires was thick.

“It’s a lot of work and definitely a busy day, but at the end of the day, you know exactly what you did,” Ader said of the feeling of giving back.

Learning Through Volunteering, and Dreaming of Athletic Highs

Ader says she has learned a lot through her time volunteering, and that her perceptions of people living on the streets have changed. “When you see a homeless person having a dog, they cannot provide for their own life, why do they have a dog?” Ader confessed of initially thinking.

She was quick to call herself out and realized that dogs are social animals and many homeless come to rely on them for companionship. She understands the stress homelessness places on a person’s mental health. “So having a dog can even help you to escape those mental issues.” She has learned that it is important to force yourself to hold back judgement, to avoid any inherent biases, because you never know the individual’s story.

As far as her own personal journey, Ader has been involved with track and field for over 15 years. She remembers getting involved around the age of six and never looking back. She has set her mind to reach the top of the sport: the 2021 Olympics in Tokyo and the 2023 World Athletics Championships in Eugene, Oregon. These will be difficult to qualify for, but she has a lot of events to choose from.

“I love and prioritize the long jump, high jump, and 100 meters hurdles,” Ader said of her versatility. She typically competes in seven events all together, adding the shot put, the javelin, the 100 meter hurdles, the 200 meter, and 800 meter to her long list.

“Having an additional year increased, actually, my chances,” Ader said of the postponed Tokyo Olympics, originally scheduled for the 2020 summer but pushed back due to the pandemic. Meanwhile, she is back in school, training as hard as ever despite the smoke, increased COVID-19 cases on campus and the lack of current competitions, and handing out burritos on Sundays.

Reporting and Photography by Richard Bednarski for Our Town Reno

Jolene, Facing Challenges of Helping those with Addictions During a Pandemic

A Welcome Gathering with new Challenges during a Pandemic

International Overdose Awareness Day happens every year on August 31st and this year several community organizations came together and hosted an outreach event in downtown Reno, at Wingfield Park.

These groups were passionate about making this event happen this year, “because so many events have been cancelled,” said Jolene Dalluhn, the Executive Director of Quest Counseling and Consulting. She has been a licensed alcohol and drug counsellor for about 24 years. Dalluhn believes this year, during the COVID pandemic, it was crucial to have this event as many of her clients have had their lives turned upside down.

“Some of them have had relapses but are still engaged in treatment,” Dalluhn said as the park started to fill up with people. “Treatment looks very different. They may not be in person but we will have Zoom meetings.”

Dalluhn said most of her clients have rolled with the punches and adapted well to the changes due to the pandemic. Others, she said, were not so lucky and relapsed. Some patients did not have access to the technology needed for Zoom so Dalluhn’s staff worked to accommodate them either with safely distanced person-to-person meetings or through phone conversations.

Nearly 80 people showed up to support family and friends lost to an overdose or struggling with addiction.

Passing out NARCAN

According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention there were over 70,000 overdose deaths in the United States in 2019. However Dalluhn remains positive that through events like this, there can be a real impact in the community. “For a while it helped people put a focus elsewhere,” she mentions of how the pandemic sometimes positively affected her clients. However, she is starting to see that as the pandemic continues, more and more people are struggling to gain a new support group. 

Most of the groups present at this Sunday’s event passed out NARCAN, a quick acting nasal spray that temporarily reduces the effect of an opioid overdose. “A lot of people in the community want to make sure it gets out there in the hands of the people that need it; in our neighborhoods, our communities, our business, everywhere,” Dalluhn explained. She said her clinic is working hard to not miss a beat and that none of her counselors have missed a session due to the pandemic. In addition, she said she is making sure people that need access to Methadone, Vivitrol, and Suboxone are getting it. “The medication really helps them have long-term sobriety,” she said.

As more people gathered, more and more tokens of memory were placed around the base of an overarching pine tree.

These flowers have stories, quotes, and messages of hope written on them and are planted in the ground. Each one represents someone lost. It is impactful to see them and inspiring to see the overwhelming support and love their families still have for those lost to addiction.

Dalluhn wants more people to not be afraid of getting treatment. She hopes the community will start “reducing the stigma around seeking help.” Oftentimes people avoid help, she said, because they are scared or think help means they automatically have to check into a residency program. However, that is not often the case, Dalluhn explained. “I think just asking questions and encouraging people to be really supportive of somebody you know that might have a substance abuse is really imperative.”

Reporting and Photography by Richard Bednarski for Our Town Reno

Gabriel, Looking to Make Biking in Reno Safer and More Expansive

Still Riding Despite Being Hit by a Car

As several dozens of local bicyclists prepared for a protest ride around Midtown last Friday, Gabriel Garcia proudly rode up with his blue Mataro fixed gear Aventon, an increasingly popular brand for urban commuters.

“Honestly, more representation for bikes and more bike lanes,” Garcia explained as to some of the reasons for his participation. Garcia says he is hopeful the cycling infrastructure will get better here in Reno, as new construction projects include more bike lanes. “I know that they started doing a project on North Virginia,” he said, talking about current work around the University, which also includes a new bus station. “I think they definitely need to do more stuff, especially in the outer areas like Lemon Valley.” Garcia hit a note that has been resonating throughout the cycling community for some time, as in more bike lanes in the outlying valleys connecting them to the center of the city. 

Garcia says he rides mostly for pleasure and enjoys mountain biking as much as riding along the Truckee River. He believes the cycling community here in Reno is strong, but could be stronger. “You just don’t see many riders in the city,” which he says has maybe lost some of its momentum due to COVID and the hazy air brought on by a raging fire season.

Garcia says he has been hit by a car in the past but took equal blame for the incident. “But people need to slow down and watch for riders and not push riders out of the road,” he said. It is a two-way street Garcia feels is improving. He thinks the multi-use lane is a good idea, like the ones with big bicycle symbols in Midtown “especially when you’re riding with more riders.” He says he regularly uses the existing multi-use lane on Riverside Dr. by Idlewild Park. 

Jeff Carter has been active in the cycling community for a long time and as a business owner wants more awareness and safety for cyclists.

Hoping to Start a New Tradition

Jeff Carter, the owner of the Glass Die, a board game parlour with craft drinks in Midtown, said he hopes to make the protest ride a weekly one, planning to take advantage of the recently completed construction in Midtown. The lane on Virginia street extending from California Avenue down to Mt. Rose Street is now designed to allow cyclists to use the entire space. Before last week’s group ride, Carter talked about the history of the project and how the community can move forward to make it even safer for riders. There was talk about starting a petition to lower the speed limit in that section to 15 miles per hour. 

As the ride began, over 60 cyclists took to the street safely navigating the residential roads up towards Virginia street. When the group reached Virginia street everyone began riding next to one another, while keeping adequate social distance, occupying the entire lane. The group rode down to Mt. Rose Street where the designated lane ends, turned around and continued back up towards California Avenue. This exemplifies the community Garcia talked about. There are several organized group rides in the area during the week and weekends for varying levels and terrains.

Many onlookers and drivers yelled words or praise and honked their horns showing support as the cyclists looped around Midtown.

“I think it’s going to be growing, honestly, booming in the next few years,” Garcia said of cycling’s local growth. He has also works in the cycling industry, with the Reno Bike Project, a local non-profit dedicated to raising awareness and access to cycling.

August 2020 Reporting and Photography for Our Town Reno by Richard Bednarski

Leala, Making Equal Access Masks for Smiles and Much More

Turning a Crisis into Finding a Solution

Leala Lierman, who has congenital hearing loss, was in her final semester at UNR, planning to teach deaf children in the Philippines, when COVID-19 hit. 

Instead, the 31-year-old decided to teach herself how to sew, found a 25-year old machine, and called her mom on FaceTime.  Her initial idea was just to make standard masks for herself and coworkers at the Washoe Public House restaurant where she works. But then it went much further.

“I was proud of my new skill and happy to help until I realized how detrimental these masks were to my communication abilities,” she writes on the About page of her Nevada Smiles website.   “Not only do they muffle sound, but they block visual access for speech and lipreading. When interacting with guests at the restaurant, I found it harder to connect.  My smile and expression become muted and obsolete behind a standard mask.”

She now makes what she calls equal access masks, which have mouth visibility, so smiles can be seen and lips can be read while wearing them.

“Normal cloth face coverings and masks not only lower the overall sound decibel of speech production but also eliminate the majority of spoken language visual cues,” she wrote to us in an email interview, explaining the particular usefulness of the masks she now sells online for $25. 

“Listening takes a tremendous amount of effort in ways people with normal hearing might not consider.  Normal masks leave me feeling lost and left to guess what the person in front of me is saying.”

The Reno High and Western Nevada College graduate also has a special kit for teachers, with four masks with mouth visibility going for $75. Leala’s own educational background is in Deaf Studies, audiology and speech therapy.  “Needless to say, communication (spoken and signed) is near and dear to my heart.  I would have struggled tremendously if my teachers were in normal masks... like probably not passed,” she wrote to us. 

“My masks are a two layer material mask with a clear vinyl window,” she explained to us in an email. “The inside material is 100% cotton and the outside is a patterned cotton blend. Every mask is completed with adjustable ear straps, a metal nose piece and is machine washable.”

Extras Added and Extra Challenges

Masks she sells come in a burlap bag printed with the Nevada smiles logo, an all natural anti fog roller and use/care instructions.

“Why the bag? Two reasons: I want people to have a clean space to store their mask when it isn't on their face - especially in a setting like a restaurant or school… I don't want to set my mask down on a dirty surface.  Additionally, the bags serve as packaging.  I didn't want to use plastic and I was able to source these burlap bags at a surprisingly reasonable cost,” she explained to us.

She says these masks are quite challenging and time consuming to make, but worth it.  “They're soooooo much harder and more complicated than a normal face covering,” she wrote. “ The biggest challenge is working with the vinyl.  We are not pinning anything into place before sewing.  If we were to pin the vinyl to the material, the process would be a LOT easier.  Unfortunately, sticking pins in the front of a face covering leaves holes and therefore defeats the purpose.  Additionally, if the corners of the mask are not folded and sewn correctly, the mask does not maintain shape and you end up with the vinyl pressed against your lips.”

After getting initial help from her Mom, she has now hired one worker to keep up with the demand she is getting.

A similar company called ClearMask, which started before the pandemic, after a deaf patient had gone through a negative surgery experience, lists many other beneficiaries of these types of masks, including older people, people whose first language is not the same as the one being spoken, children, interpreters, people experiencing stress and anxiety, customer-facing employees and workers in noisy environments.

For the hard of hearing and Deaf communities, Leala says it’s a constant battle, which goes beyond masks. “Here's two current examples: YouTube is considering ending their Closed Caption service. The White House is currently being sued by members of The National Association of the Deaf for not providing a sign language interpreter at any of Trump's Covid announcements... or any of his speeches at all for that matter. I had to fight tooth and nail at UNR to get the accommodations I deserved for my hearing loss. We all deserve the right to equal access.”

“For me, the biggest goal, and true motivation behind my business is to start a conversation and raise awareness. Many individuals who are d/Deaf (According to Access Innovation Media, the "uppercase D" Deaf is used to describe people who identify as culturally Deaf and are actively engaged with the Deaf community) and hard of hearing are really struggling right now. However, we are no stranger to this struggle. We fight for communication access allllllll the time,” Leala wrote to us.

The Benefit of Seeing More Smiles

“Honestly, the fact that you can see a smile is a big deal,” the local entrepreneur wrote to us in her email interview.  “Especially right now, living in hard times, a smile can change a lot. There are a number of specific groups that would benefit from a mask style like this:  for example, individuals on the Autism Spectrum are far more likely to withdraw in situations where they struggle to read social cues.  Normal face coverings take away a lot of social cues - pursed lips, smirk, smile, snarl, frown.  Accompanied with sunglasses and all facial cues are erased entirely.  I previously mentioned teachers - in elementary school teachers are a primary emotional model. So, not only do they need these masks for teaching phonetics, but also to show students how to interact socially,” she explained.

Leala also makes custom masks for special orders and has an extensive range of styling. “I have masks in everything from solid black to camo to pink polka-dots,” she said, while also following current recommended standards set by the World Health Organization and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

She says she’s tired of debating about whether or not masks are needed in the first place. “Our community needed a solution because the masks were here to stay for a while so I decided to create that solution. “

She is optimistic Northern Nevada will finally flatten the curve. “It's just a matter of time,” she wrote. While putting her southeast Asia travel plans on hold, she is trying to stay as safe as she can, while supplementing her mask income bartending, nannying and tutoring in ASL.

“I love our community here.  I think it's very unique, strong and resilient,” she writes to conclude our email interview.

Our Town Reno Email Interview in August 2020

Hannah Branch, A Teenager Organizing Free Local Remote Tutoring During a Pandemic

Getting Ready for Some Zoom Coaching

It’s just a matter of days now before the Washoe County District starts its most chaotic school year on record and Wooster high school senior Hannah Branch, 17, is getting ready to zoom coach some pro bono teenage tutors. She describes the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic as a health, educational, and economic crisis and felt a calling to step up. 

A few weeks ago, Branch set up an ingenious program called R.A.F.T, an acronym for Reno Alliance for Free Tutoring. The fully remote service has enlisted 50 plus local high school students who will help elementary and middle school students with 45-minute sessions in math, history, English, biology, chemistry, physics and social studies. 

“I call it an Alliance because I think it's genuinely a mutually beneficial relationship for high school students to be helping elementary and middle school students. It's really caught on as an opportunity for my peers to lend their time at a really critical moment for education,” she told us in a phone interview. 

The program is reaching out specifically to low income students, who, she fears “won’t be given the resources they need.”  She says pre-pandemic there were problems in Washoe County schools such as a lack of sanitary products, which does not instill confidence for the current reopening.

“I've had frequent experiences of not having soap and not having toilet paper in school bathrooms,” she said. “The fact that we don't even have the funding or the infrastructure to have those materials in place for students before a health crisis makes me very concerned about the ability of schools to reopen safely.”

But she says she understands the reasoning behind the hybrid reopening model taking place, “given the fact that so many families in our community do use school as childcare. I recognize the fact that as dangerous and as morbid as it is, some families do need to send their students back in order to maintain their livelihood in order to go to work every day. So from a broader perspective, of course, I'd prefer a world in which that kind of inequality and that kind of forcing the students to go back before it's safe was not at all necessary, but I recognize the reasoning behind having a hybrid model as well.”

Branch has already set up a slick Squarespace website with an About page: “We aim to make distance learning navigable for all learners in Reno”, Core Values : “Education. Equity. Service”, as well as volunteer resources.

No Shortcuts while Reaching Out

Branch is putting extensive research into organizing the tutoring, looking closely at best practice models from publicly available tutoring resources such as universities and expert blogs.

“The training itself is going to be twofold,” she said. “The first objective of the training is to establish essentially common sense policies and guiding values just to make sure everyone's on the same page about the goals of our organization, specifically our core values of education, equity, and service. The second goal of the training is to give our tutors essentially tools in their toolbox to be effective at what we do. So we're really just providing them a crash course in how to be an effective tutor with the limited experience we do have as teens,” Branch said of organizing coaching sessions for her team of volunteers.

The tutoring will be available via Zoom, but also phone lines, FaceTime or any technology a student can access. It will be flexible in terms of hours as well, from mornings to evenings, to increase flexibility.

“The pros of doing this online in this specific historical moment are obviously safety. We're providing our students with the opportunity to get education and educational resources without risking their health, which an in person model would not. We do recognize that it's going to be a lot different than an in person tutoring session, just in terms of the dynamic that's created by an online relationship, at least initially,” she said.

She has also started fundraising efforts and reaching out to families who could use this tutoring help. “We've heard a lot of people saying this is something that they haven't seen before and that they'd really enjoy having present in their families and their learning and their community,” she said.

She also reached out to the Food Bank of Northern Nevada to increase awareness. “We are discussing reaching the same populations they serve to the extent possible, whether that's through handing out flyers or doing outreach efforts at their various locations that serve Nevada's youth. We hope to expand those outreach efforts in the coming weeks, because it really is our goal to be reaching students who actually need this program.”

“We're aware that education gaps only get wider because students who can pay for additional economic resources, specifically paid tutoring or other similar models, can more easily stay afloat and even get ahead, while other students are often left behind. So, we modeled our organization off of the idea of service, because we feel that it's important to mitigate the effects of the crisis on traditionally disadvantaged communities. A lot of my peers saw that need as well and wanted to be a resource to younger students because we truly believe that there's absolutely no reason that certain students should have access to educational health and mentorship while others shouldn't.”

Adjusting to School at Home

Branch who calls herself an English nerd will be staying at home herself as school resumes, as the IB program she’s in at Wooster High is allowing students to “work fully remotely.” Her younger teenage sister will also start the school year at home.

“It's certainly been an adjustment,” Branch said of homes now also becoming makeshift pandemic era schools and offices. “I know my parents were concerned at least last semester about making sure that my sister and I were receiving quality education when we were planning our own time. I know that that was a pretty big concern within our family that even if we wanted to learn and we're capable of learning that just the time management aspect is self-paced. What students need, especially younger students is to just have someone sit down and help them structure their time effectively so they can complete the material they've been given.”

She also has tips on setting up an ideal learning space. “You need a cozy space for learning because now your house is also your school. My advice would be to set up somewhere you're comfortable and somewhere you can be for awhile.”

“I think I want to give back to my community because I'm so fortunate to be in a place of having the energy, and the ability to do so,” Branch said. She has also used her own Instagram feed for promotion and posting videos and photos. “It's also not lost on me that I've been very fortunate to have the resources that I've had throughout my education. When I needed tutoring, I was able to get tutoring in middle school. And, I've had access to consistently really strong educational programs throughout my academic career.”

Staying on Message as a Budding Organizer

Branch, who lives in the Caughlin Ranch area but grew up “way up north as a wilderness baby,” says she’s thinking of her own future, including going to university for a political science degree and then moving on to law school. “I hope to be either a politician or a campaign manager or something along those lines. I'm really passionate about organizing,” she said.

While times are dire, she believes the opportunity is also here for positive change, both individually and collectively.

“COVID has really illuminated inequalities and areas of concern in our education system and in our community that have been present for a long time that had never been this extreme. So the need for free tutoring isn't new, but the sort of space to launch such an idea is. The ground is ripe for new ideas like this because we're in a time of such dire need. And I think that when viewed through that lens, we can really see this moment as a moment for progress.”

Always on message, and not wanting to talk about herself too much, when asked if she had anything to add, Branch gave us her new organization’s elevator pitch. “The Reno Alliance for Free tutoring or R.A.F.T is a fully remote student led volunteer tutoring organization. We aim to connect local elementary and middle school students with high school age mentors in their community for regular 45 minute lessons in core subjects. So they can stay afloat and stay home. “

Our Town Reno Phone Interview in August 2020

Lucia Starbuck, an Our Town Reno Reporter Bids Farewell

SK: As we get started, can you share a little bit about yourself and how you got involved with Our Town Reno?

LS: “Last fall I did a documentary called the ‘Anarchist Picnic,’ where I covered a group that hosts weekly potlucks for the houseless community near the GSR. After that, Nico Colombant reached out to me and asked if I wanted to do this kind of reporting. I was really interested in it because that documentary really opened my eyes to the issues that houseless individuals are facing and I wanted to dig into that a little bit more. My background, I'm from Reno. I've been reporting for about two years. I love nature. I love dogs. I love movies and random, interesting facts about movies.”

While reporting about those on the streets and their pets, Lucia Starbuck took this picture of Marilou and her best friend.

SK: What has it been like being a reporter for Our Town Reno?

LS: “It's been chaotic. Everything changes and moves so quickly. So if I hear about something, it needs to be reported on that day. It can all change so instantly. It's been a lot of really early mornings going to police sweeps that are happening of homeless encampments, or really late shooting video of a street photographer in the middle of the night in downtown Reno. So it’s a lot of hearing what's going on in the community and acting instantly, going to it, reporting on it, figuring out what's going on and a lot of listening to folks about what issues they're facing because I wouldn't really know [what it’s like to be houseless], but just taking what I'm told and just running with it.”

While reporting about the point in time count, Lucia Starbuck took this picture of Leanne Duey.

SK: You mentioned that you're originally from Reno. In what ways has working for Our Town Reno changed your perception of the city?

LS: “I think growing up in Reno you just have this feeling of, ‘Oh, I can't wait to get out of Reno. I don't want to be here anymore. I've grown up here, I know everything, I know everyone.’ But reporting for Our Town Reno has changed my outlook completely. I've met so many different people, seen so many different things going on in the community and met really rad people that if I would've left immediately I would have never met. So [my perception has] definitely changed. I have a higher appreciation for [Reno]. I guess also maybe a little anger towards it, figuring out what the city is doing wrong or what the County is doing wrong or the kind of corruption [that exists] in the city. I love it so much more, but I'm also like, ‘Wow, like why are y'all doing this?’ So just those kinds of kinds of feelings. But I've just overall learned so much more about the city.”

A photo Lucia Starbuck took of a donation drive by the Reno Hope Bus before the pandemic shutdown.

SK: As you look back on your time reporting for Our Town Reno, are there any particular stories or memories that stand out?

LS: “I think every single interview I do, every single person I talk to has had an impact on me and on my heart. Some stories that have stuck out to me the most: I've met this really cool person and her name is Lisa Lee. She works at Foundation for Recovery. She's formerly homeless and has also gone through substance use. Hearing from her, it's just so cool because she's just so grassroots and the people that need help and need help now, she’s going to help them right now. I just love seeing that direct action. She talks about the origins of Food Not Bombs, which is basically like going into dumpsters and getting food and making them in big pots at your friend's house [to share with the houseless community]. 

That's one part I love is hearing that there are people who care about Reno and are trying to make a difference. A lot of houseless individuals I've talked to who live on the streets have really impacted me too. One story specifically, LeaRae, who's also going to be in my documentary [about houseless individuals and their pets called “Biggest Little Companions”]. Her story was really special as she just became homeless not too long ago and she also has a dog with her. It's really cool to hear about the resilience she has. I see her a lot now too, so it’s nice to catch up with her as she remembers me, too.

Annette who I met with [you], she also has a dog, Kiekie, and her story is really special, too. When we met her, she was kind of on her own but she's doing a little bit better now. But hearing about how she basically made a family for herself, made a community for herself at one of the parks and just hearing about how she spends her time also looking out for youngsters on the street. It's really special to know that there are these built-in families and see that people do have support on the streets.”

Lucia Starbuck accompanied a downtown Reno ambassador doing his rounds as the coronavirus shutdown took effect.

SK: So you've been working for Our Town Reno for almost two years now. What has it been like to work for a niche media publication like Our Town Reno, one that has a specific topic, compared to some other media organizations that you have experience with?

LS: “I think that's what I love the most about Our Town Reno in that I do get what I guess you can call a beat. It's really nice to be able to look out for these things. If I'm kind of a general assignment reporter, it's like here's the story here and there, but I don't get the chance to really dig into stuff. But with Our Town Reno, which we cover things like homelessness, affordable housing and then we have our ears out in Reno. Those are the folks that are doing good things in the community. So it's like I get to just focus on what's going on in that community and build a lot of relationships with the activist and advocacy groups. I get to touch base with them, see them at meetings and it's nice to just be able to build relationships like this because it’s what I do, it’s what I cover, these are things that I can look out for.

Another thing I really like about Our Town Reno is that before [I started working for] Our Town Reno, I didn't realize how large our homeless population is in Reno and what they face. So I really support the work of Our Town Reno and its topic because when I see other media in Reno covering it, it's kind of like a ‘Here's a quick look at what’s going on,’ but I like being able to say ‘This is my job and I'm going to actually talk to these people that are facing these things.’”

Lucia Starbuck recently reported about Mary Charles who after being on the streets with addictions now conducts peer recovery online.

 SK: For our listeners and readers who only see the finished product, could you share a little bit about your approach to stories and how you go out and find stories?

LS: “Oh my gosh, so much goes into every story I make of course. A lot of it is man-on-the-street, so that's literally grabbing my recorder, my camera and just going to the places where people are. So that's going to parks, under bridges, along railroad tracks, and it can be kind of scary just kind of approaching someone and saying, ‘Hey, we didn't set up this interview but can you share your life story with me?’ 

I have really bad social anxieties, so those kinds of things really terrify me. But once I'm there I'm like, ‘Wait, I love doing this. I love talking to folks.’ So it's also kind of like the lead up when you're getting out of the car [to approach someone] and you're like, ‘Is this crazy?’ Like if a reporter approached me, I don't even know what I would say or do. 

The writing process is a whole other beast. Some of these conversations can be really quick, but other conversations I've had last like an hour and it's like, ‘Oh my gosh, how do I put this amazing story into like a few pages for an article?’ So it's also picking the best bites and trying to do good for them, too, because I think the goal is to shine a light on the things that they're feeling personally.

Then other things like the tip about the huge sweep that we covered, because I got a call from someone who said, ‘Hey, I know you report on this. This is what's going on.’ So it's also a lot of just contacting my people that I know in the community and just really finding out the stories from the people actually experiencing these things.”

Lucia Starbuck covered a protest denouncing sweeps of encampments.

 SK: In what ways has your experience with Our Town Reno shaped you as a journalist?

LS: “[Our Town Reno] has definitely made me the journalist I am today. I've learned the value of reporting quickly and just being there. I also love the experimental factor. Sometimes when I’m on the scene, I don't have the chance to write out this beautifully constructed article. So it's sometimes just a video of me saying, ‘Hey, this is Lucia Starbuck from Our Town Reno. This is what I'm seeing,’ and literally just showing it. I love being able to do that kind of experimental stuff. This isn't super traditional, but what better way for me to communicate this information than showing you a video of it. So it’s different things like that I really enjoy.” 

SK: Since we focus on stories from the streets and homelessness in the community, how has your perception of the homeless community changed since working for our town Reno?

LS: “That's definitely been one of the biggest impacts from this job to me. Now, it’s kind of always on my mind. I'm always worried, especially seeing some of the things since the Covid-19 [outbreak]. I have so much heart for this community whom I've never really interacted with before I worked for Our Town Reno. Now every time it's cold and at night I'm so sad that people are sleeping outside and this is something that is just so prevalent right now. Then when I hear about the impacts of Covid-19, I'm like, ‘But what about the houseless?’ So it’s just engulfed a lot in my mind and I'm also just on the lookout all the time. A lot of my Twitter newsfeed is seeing what's going on in other cities and wondering, ‘Will this happen in Reno?’ Or if something is happening in Reno and seeing it in other cities. I think it's always on my mind now for sure.”

Lucia Starbuck also interviewed people who wished to share their story while staying anonymous, like this man who was living in his car.

SK: You mentioned the Covid-19 outbreak. How has that changed what you've been doing for Our Town Reno and approaching the homeless community?

LS: “I'm really sad because we're being told to stay in our home so I haven't been able to do the man-on-the-street stuff that I love doing. I still did in the beginning and it was really interesting because people just weren't informed of what's going on, especially with all the stuff at the shelter. It's changed a lot because I'm not able to reach that community and some folks don't have phones or Internet access. I usually have to go to their tent, to the parks and where they hang out during the day and halting that really makes me sad because it's hard to report on what's going on if I'm not there. The city can tell us all they want, all the wonderful things that they are implementing to help folks out but it's like, ‘Do they have hand-washing stations? Do they have adequate bathrooms? Do they have water? Do they have a place to go to the bathroom?’ Things like that. So it's really hard to report on this community if I'm not able to be on the streets.”

SK: What has it been like in terms of the community feedback that you get on a lot of your stories that you've done for Our Town Reno?

LS: “It's a mixed bag for sure. I religiously read every single comment, the shares and the comments that are on other people's shares. I'm looking at literally everything all the time. There are a lot of positive comments, a lot of like, ‘I didn’t know this was happening, thank you for sharing their story.’ A few people have reached out to help those folks, so that's really good. A lot of trolls, too, that will say things like, ‘I still don't get why this person is homeless.’ Well, they just explained to you what exactly happened to them in the story, so if you read it you would know why they are homeless, things like that. 

Our Town Reno is a little experimental, so sometimes we just have one voice for a story. But I'm still going into it as a journalist and these folks do not have an incentive to lie or make things up. They are so honest all the time, so people kind of get mad at that. For example, I did a story on a sign in a McDonald's that said you can't be here for more than 30 minutes. I was like, ‘Hmm, I wonder if this targets houseless individuals?’ I went down there to interview folks about the sign and I interviewed someone who was staying in the shelter and she totally approved of the sign and she’s like, ‘I’m trying to eat here. I don't want people hanging out for more than 30 minutes.’ Like, totally honest. We had posted that and there were comments saying, ‘This reporting is so lazy, you asked one person. I eat there and there are people hanging out around the outside.’ But it's like, if you read it, she agrees with you. So it's things like that. But those comments are kind of like whatever, the comments that are really kind and thoughtful responses like asking, ‘Have they tried these resources?’ Those are the ones that I like to keep in mind.

Elizabeth expressed concerns of coronavirus contagion while living in a crowded encampment.

SK: So for our listeners and viewers, we're sad to say that your time with Our Town Reno is coming to an end. We'd like to thank you for all the time and effort that you've put in for our audience, sharing these stories. From a personal level, I'm very grateful to have learned so much from you as a journalist and as a person, as well as a whole lot about Reno having worked alongside you. So for our audience that has gotten to know you and your work over the past two years: What's next?

LS: “So surprise! I'm not leaving Reno yet, so you'll still see me for a bit. I want to continue reporting on this population. I want to cover what's happening to people who are living on the streets. I'm going on to work for This is Reno. The editor just received a grant, so I'll be covering Covid-19 impacts on vulnerable populations and one is the houseless. So I'm excited to continue that reporting there. So I'm really excited. I'm not leaving yet. I’ll be in Reno for at least a little while longer.

A self-portrait Lucia Starbuck took as one of the street photographers for our affiliated Biggest Little Streets Instagram.

 SK: So in closing here with us, what message would you like to share with Our Town Reno’s audience?

LS: “At the end of the day, I think if you're feeling sad or in a bad place, I think you should know there are people in Reno who do want to help. It seems sometimes that everywhere you look there aren't enough resources, but there are individuals who are actively trying to help you get what you need. For the folks in Reno, next time you see someone on the streets say, ‘Hello,’ and ask [them], ‘How's it going?’ It can be something as simple as a nod of acknowledgement just as you would any passer-by. Just be a decent human being. Spread more kindness because there could be some more, but I think there already is some [kindness] in general, too. But those are kind of my messages. Just be nice to people and if you need help, please seek out some of that help.”

SK: Thanks again Lucia for taking the time to speak with me today and share a little bit about your experience with Our Town Reno for our listeners and readers. Thank you for all the hard work and effort that you've put into Our Town Reno for the past two years and good luck on your future endeavors.

LS: “Thank you Scott and thank you, Our Town Reno.”

Our Town Reno Q and A by Scott King

Caitlin Thomas: Being Unapologetically Herself in a Changing Biggest Little City

From Writing Film Reviews to Running a Sex Column

Caitlin Thomas describes herself as a writer, creator, artist, feminist and movie lover. Thomas has lived in Reno for roughly 16 years and said she’s gotten a good dose of what the Biggest Little City has to offer, while also contributing to its uniqueness. She has been writing poetry from a young age but around 2010, she began writing film reviews for the student-run newspaper at UNR, The Nevada Sagebrush, while she was studying. 

Thomas has been a film enthusiast ever since she was a little girl. She got her first taste of cinema when she attended film camp at nine years old. At 16 years old, Thomas began working at Blockbuster Video. However, after working with and writing about movies, Thomas wanted to explore other topics with her sarcastic style of writing. She then became the newspaper’s sex columnist.

"It was like, what can I get away with? To the right, it's like, 'What's your favorite yoga position?," and all of this stuff that just felt boring to me. If you're waiting for your class to start and you have a paper, don't you want to read something where you're like, 'Whoa!'?” Thomas said.

Thomas wrote about religion, sex and stripping. She felt that these topics were important to shine a light on and said they were more taboo to talk about 10 years ago. Thomas also wrote about the abortion she had. 

Thomas’ abortion story was picked up by HuffPost.

"I thought that, not a lot of people are speaking up about that stuff. When I found out I was pregnant, I had to really dig deep, to find out experience stories," Thomas said, "So, you're like, 'Okay, well what's going to happen when I go do it?' It was kind of hard to find stuff, especially things that weren't biased to a pro life agenda. It's just like, what a pain in the ass, you know? So, it really helped that I could be like a voice for someone and I still feel really good about it."

"It's not for money, obviously,” Thomas said of why she writes. “It's not for clout. Is that what the kids say? It's because it's what I need to get out, you know? I've found a way to get it out. Therapy is great, but I also think that sometimes you just have to write it out," Thomas said.

Creating Safe Spaces to Talk about Sex

Thomas also previosuly wrote a handful of stories for the Reno News & Review, before it went on blog hiatus due to the coronavirus shutdown. She wrote about being a controversial feminist and FemSex, a class she helped create, which served as a safe space for mainly women to talk about a broad range of topics on sexuality.

Thomas also wrote about the five kinds of women she observed while she spent four months in jail in 2017 for a drug possession charge from 2014. Thomas made sure to clarify that she doesn’t consider herself a journalist. Instead, Thomas said sharing her own experiences is a form of therapy.

To her dismay, her beloved Blockbuster Video closed shop. Thomas said she gets bored easily so she found herself a new job. On Halloween, at 19 years old, Thomas had her first audition at the Wild Orchid Gentlemen's Club. 

"I feel like, maybe there was a stereotype that brings one into the sex work industry. We can argue all day about sex work, what the definition of that is. But I do think maybe stripping is part of that because it's just in that genre of sexual exhibitionism. But for the record, you don't have sex with them, you just dance on stage. But you know, there was a sexual element to it. I've always loved to dance in my life and I love music. I love playing guitar. I always thought if I had to work, I was either going to work at a video store because I love the film or I was going to dance and have fun," Thomas said.

Defending Strip Clubs She’s Worked At

Thomas said she worked at all of the strip clubs in Reno over a span of six years, while she was still a student at UNR. She said her favorite to work at was Fantasy Girls, but all of the clubs felt the same to her.

Reno’s strip clubs have been feeling heat from the City of Reno. Kamy Keshmiri and his family own three strip clubs in Reno: Wild Orchid Gentlemen's Club, Fantasy Girls, and the Spice House. Members of the Reno City Council have been fighting to force Keshmiri to move his strip clubs out of downtown or to heavily regulate them, according to Anjeanette Damon, the investigative journalist who reported on this conflict for the now also defunct podcast The City. But Thomas, who’s worked at all three of those strip clubs, said they play a crucial role in society.

"There are perverts in society and unfortunately there are pedophiles, and sometimes they need to go to the club to get their energy out, to just be primal for a minute, and just watch a girl dance or have a girl gyrate on their lap, and dry hump, or whatever. If we take all that away, sometimes I get worried that, that might surface, that male rage. Look, I'm a huge feminist and it sucks that this exists because it's like, why do you need an outlet? Go home, watch porn. But some guys, they need that redirection and they need to see someone," Thomas said. "It's controversial, but I think that these things need to exist because I think your average man who goes to the strip club by himself at 2:00 PM might be having some issues sexually, you know? There's nothing wrong with that as long as he's not hurting anyone."

More Rights Needed for Strippers

Thomas said strippers deserve more rights too. Recently, a video of a stripper falling down a 15-20 foot pole went viral. The woman in the video, Genea Sky, had a GoFundMe to pay for her injuries which included a fractured jaw, broken teeth and a sprained ankle. Thomas said the video traumatized her. 

"We're independent contractors and it's just kind of anything goes,” she said. “There's no job security, that sucks. You just have to move clubs if anything happens. It sucks because if you get into any situation where you get into a fight with anyone or someone's being unreasonable with you in the back room, it's always, he said, she said. They don't always believe dancers, you know? 'Oh, you're a drug addict. Oh, you're a liar.' It's like, no, they were just like trying to touch me. You can get 86ed for anything and that really sucks," Thomas said.

Thomas said she would like to look towards unions for strippers and for them to receive hourly pay. She also wants perceptions to change, and for strip club owners to believe women if they say they feel unsafe.  With coronavirus, workers at adult clubs haven’t been getting unemployment benefits because they are considered independent contractors, adding to their difficulties.

For Thomas, that life is in the past, but for her, it was made of fond memories as well. "I got so good on the pole, it sounds dumb, but I got good. I could climb, I could flip upside down. It felt good to get up there and I didn't care what anyone said, I still don't. That was fun, you know, and getting athletic and in shape, it was great," Thomas said.

Writing Thomas published about stripping in Reno.

Shining Light on Difficulties and Pursuing Goals

In addition to shining a light on topics of sex, Thomas would like to see more people pay attention to houseless individuals in Reno.

"It's like they're invisible, you know, it's really terrible,” she said. “There's not a lot of empathy. I think that people are very in their own world. I think you can tell a lot about people by just the way they interact with the homeless," Thomas said. "You don't have to give them money, but I think just talking to someone like they're a human being, is so important. It's like, if you're on a first date and you're walking on the river and they complain about it, that's when you can tell: this is someone who doesn't have a lot of empathy and that's a problem. Who says they're going to be empathetic to you, you know, when you need it? I think it's a good filter for who to date, and who not to date."

Even though Thomas hasn’t been houseless herself, she knows what it’s like to not have stable housing. 

"My lease ended and I was looking for a new place. So, there were two weeks where I was living with my boyfriend and that feeling of like not really having a home is terrible. First of all, you don't want to feel like you are leaning on anyone, you know? You find out who your real friends are, let's put it that way," Thomas said.

Right now, Thomas is currently writing scripts for movies and a book called Romance in the Vice, which is a memoir about her experiences dancing. She also hopes to go to law school in the future.

Reporting and Photography by Lucia Starbuck for Our Town Reno

Nerd Nite Reno Turns to Zoom and Black Lives Matter

A June 24th Plan Gets Serious

With COVID-19, Nerd Nite has had to go into a Zooming phase. With the George Floyd protests, one of its organizers, Anna Tatarko, felt the need to organize a gathering around the issues of systemic police racism and the need for reform.

“This month in June, what we want to do is focus on more local issues, centered around the issues of racism, institutional racism, police brutality,” she said.

The plan for now is June 24th, 7 p.m., via Zoom, the now widely used video conferencing platform, which the group already experimented with in May with a link: tiny.cc/nerdnitereno and the password: nerd. “We had a lot of people that I've never seen before tune in and people from outside Reno were tuning in,” Tatarko said of the first Zoom attempt. Nerd Nites, tag line “be there and be square”, have been around since 2003, and now take place monthly in over 100 cities around the world.

“I've reached out to some of the members of the local Black Lives Matter Facebook page and the people who lead it and I've been put in touch with three people through that and pitched the idea at them. And I I don't want to tell them here, this is what you have to talk about. We have started having some discussions about, these are the kind of the things that it would be interesting, I think to the Reno community, if we talk about them,” she said of plans for the upcoming June 24th Reno Nerd Nite. On Instagram, it was confirmed the speakers would be Nathaniel Phillipps, Elisha Harris and city councilman at-large Devon Reese.

Taking Part in #SHUTDOWNSTEM

Tatarko took part in the initial peaceful Black Lives Matter rally in downtown Reno in late May, and said she felt people’s anger from the outset. She also feels that after the subsequent night of violence, the movement returned to being more focused.

“We hope we can continue having these conversations and that it doesn't just fade away because these issues aren't being addressed and they're still here and that's a problem,” she said.

The Kansas native hasn’t been able to do her usual summer field work due to COVID-19. She says she believes pandemic forced cancellations also explains some of the people’s time to be more active with social issues right now. She recently took part in a #ShutDownSTEM online movement to address anti-Black racism in the realm of Science, Technology, Engineering and Math.

“In the wake of the most recent murders of Black people in the U.S., it is clear that white and other non-Black people have to step up and do the work to eradicate anti-Black racism. As members of the global academic and STEM [science, technology, engineering, and math] communities, we have an enormous ethical obligation to stop doing ‘business as usual,’” the organizers of #ShutDownSTEM said.

On the day we spoke with her, instead of working on her research, Tatarko said she was going to read articles about racism in academia and science, and participate in another Zoom call on the topic with other scientists and grad students.

Our Town Reno Reporting June 2020

Reno Through a Lens: Eric Marks, A Documentarian on the Streets at Night

An Early Start to a Lifelong Passion of Documenting

Dressed in a black hooded-sweatshirt and camera in hand, Eric Marks has become a feature of downtown Reno nightlife. But as the owner of Reno Street Photography and as a documentarian, he’s more in the shadows, documenting what he sees to share with the world what life on the streets of Reno is all about. 

His love for cameras can be attributed to his grandfather, who gave him his first Instamatic in the 1970s.

“My grandfather was an avid photography enthusiast, my father as well. There were always cameras around my house,” Marks said when we caught up with him for an extended interview of what drives him to capture so much of Reno. “My first foray into photography was going table to table after the junior ski program at the Reindeer Lodge, (a former property of Mount Rose highway), popping off family portraits for people and then hustling them out for ten bucks a pop.”

It didn’t take long for the young Marks to realize that what started as a simple side-hustle, could become a whole lot more. 

A Natural Evolution with Trials and Tribulations

“So it was like 1979 and I'm making like $80 profit-margins,” Marks said. “I just thought that was the neatest thing in the world. I expanded that to going door-to-door in my neighborhood and doing the same thing. Then it just was a natural evolution from there.” 

As time went on and he was about to finish high school, Marks decided that he was going to join the Air Force. But those plans got sidetracked when at 19 years old, he went down a toboggan run and broke his back. 

“I ended up with three fractured vertebrae and [receiving] titanium prosthesis,” Marks explained. “The entire trajectory of my life changed. I was literally a centimeter away from severing the nerves in my spine and would have been in a wheelchair.”

Due to his back injury, Marks had to put his education on the back-burner until he fully recovered. Once he did fully recover, he became an entrepreneur and went on to own two of his own video production companies. 

“I owned two video production companies from 2005 to 2012,” Marks said. “One worked in the music industry, which was really fun and [the other] worked in corporate America, which really was not. When the economy took a tank, we had to reevaluate and my partner and I just honestly had enough of video at the time. It was just taxing, so I just got burnt out and decided to go back to UNR.”

Marks went on to become a student at the University of Nevada, Reno, where he majored in English with a minor in photography and graduated in 2013. To further his education he graduated with an Art Degree from the Church Fine Arts (CFA) program at UNR in 2018. 

During his time at UNR, Marks got an opportunity to become a Teacher’s Assistant for an esteemed local photographer, Jeff Ross. After his semester working for Ross ended, Marks was invited back to continue working for Ross in his studio.

“Jeff was very kind, assisting me and my evolution [as a photographer],” Marks said. “I worked for five years with Jeff and we did everything from shower heads to portraits. So I just obtained this very diverse set of photography skills by accident.”

After closing up shop on his video company, Marks saw an open call as an assistant for a prominent wedding photographer at Lake Tahoe. At first he was turned down, already having too much experience for the unpaid assistant position. But that didn’t stop him from wanting the experience, anyway.

“I [told him], ‘I want to do it,’” Marks said. “I had never shot a wedding before and then afterwards, I thought I was going to never take a photo again. It was literally the most difficult form of photography I had ever encountered. I've got very thick skin and I'm not easy to defeat, but I was defeated. That first season I just thought to myself, ‘I don't even know if I could do photography.’”

As the top of his website indicated, Eric Marks has many specialties.

The Pressures of Wedding Photography

Although Marks works well in high-pressure environments, he admits there’s added pressure trying to manage 300+ people on what is the most important day of his clients’ lives. It didn’t take long, however, before he developed a method to the madness that has enabled him to become a five-star award winning wedding photographer today.

“[Then] it dawned on me the correlations between wedding photography and street photography,” Marks explained. “Once I made that connection, everything just kind of clicked because I was able to utilize my street photography skill set [and apply it] to the weddings. The rapid exposures, the extreme chaos, the noise, the overwhelming visuals, the whole visceral experience of it all, I love it.”

Whether he’s photographing weddings in Lake Tahoe or the streets of Reno, he applies a similar strategy that he shares with his students at Truckee Meadows Community College, where he now teaches.

“I know where my camera settings are and I try not to move my aperture or my ISO,” Marks said. “Then I can just work my shutter and that gives me a little bit of an advantage, and I teach that in the TMCC classes that I instruct.”

Although Marks has done well for himself as wedding photographer and instructor, it’s street photography that aligns with his passions. It’s a passion that began during his childhood spending time with his grandfather in San Francisco. 

“We would just sit there and people watch,” Marks explained. “To this day, I just love to observe people. I love the psychology of traffic and crowds. [My grandfather] taught me one of the most important lessons in my life in terms of photography and that's what I teach my students: look up and look down. Everybody shoots at eye level, so I really try hard to get away from that.”

Back On the Streets, A Sleepless Occupation

For Marks, shooting street photography in Reno also gave him something to do in his free time or when he couldn’t sleep.

“I'm a bit of a chronic insomniac and always have been,” Marks said. “Then after my [back] injury and ten years of intense medication coming out of that, I just really had difficulty sleeping so it's a great form of therapy [for me].”

Shooting street photography in the late hours of the night also gave Marks and his audience a glimpse into the lives of Renoites that not many people see.

“Back then Reno looked a lot different and I was driving my professors at the CFA pretty nuts because I was obsessed with [street photography],” Marks explained. “There's a lot of gritty stuff [in Reno]. Then I started catching a lot of flack from people from photographing the homeless and displaced people. Even my own department heads were saying, ‘You shouldn't be doing this, but I utterly reject that because that’s ‘otherization.’”

Marks considers his street photography all-inclusive, as it’s important to show people what their cities look like when everyone is tucked safely away in their suburban homes and lifestyles. That goes without mentioning, too, that his more controversial images drive the most traffic online.

“I see the analytics on my pages,” Marks said. “I know what images are getting the most views and I guarantee you the more hardcore they are, the photos I take at four in the morning of the transsexual prostitute in a dumpster, get a hundred percent more views than the affluent kid walking through Arlington Park. There's no argument to it and I can prove that data.” 

Some of the images Marks has captured have conjured up doubters as well, where people have even accused him of staging his photos. 

“You know, I'm not a product of any kind of dysfunctionality, I had a great family unit,” Marks said. “But some of the things that I see crawling around these streets will blow your mind and people don't believe it. I've had people call me out and think I stage photos but I couldn't stage some of these if I wanted to. But when you do this 24/7, 365 days a year, you will catch a few lucky ones.”

Although he’s come across his fair share of criticism for the street photos he’s taken, Marks asserts it doesn’t bother him in the least bit. “I've heard the comment that I have portrayed Reno in a bad way and my response is that I don't portray Reno at all,” Marks said. “We're photographers, we’re documentarians, we document what we see, we don't portray. I am documenting things that I see and if you don't like it, don't follow the page.”

Criticism and Praise

Despite some of the criticisms, Marks has received his fair share of support and praise from the community as well.

“It's very humbling and gratifying that over time I've seen other street photographers come out of the woodworks,” Marks said. “People have messaged me and were like, ‘Hey man, thanks for doing this. I always wanted to do it, but I was afraid to do it and then I saw you do it.’ That's the moral conundrum of the individual artist as a street photographer: Do you have what it takes to stick a lens in somebody's face?”

Whether it’s criticism or praise, Marks isn’t necessarily looking for his audience to have any type of particular response to his images. To him, it’s all part of each viewer’s individual experience.

“I have no desire for my viewer to have any reaction,” Marks said. “That's up to them. I don't impose mandates on my art. Whatever natural response that [my photos] invokes in you, that's great. If it angers, terrifies, brings you joy, sadness, wonder, curiosity, whatever it is, that’s great.” 

When it comes to the technical side of photography, Marks will make necessary edits to enhance his images in a certain way. That being said, though, he will never intentionally manipulate them to be something they’re not.

“I am 100% adamantly opposed to people who manipulate their images digitally,” Marks said.

“Introducing or removing an object is against the integrity of street photography. It's in direct opposition to everything that it stands for. If you do that, then you're not a street photographer.”

A recent photo from his street photography Instagram feed.

Compassion for Humans on the Streets of Reno

Street photography is not Marks’ primary source of income, it’s just always been something he’s done for himself and his love for the world around him. The things that he’s witnessed through his street photography, however, has enabled him to understand what’s really important in life. 

“It's not like I'm rolling seven figures off of my street photography endeavors,” Marks said. “I don't engage in [responding to critics] because life's too short. Some of the things I've seen on these streets and now having done street photography in 14 countries, it really makes me have an appreciation for my health and the world around me.”

Marks confirms that about 99% of the homeless and displaced people he encounters on the streets are friendly. He often befriends them, learns their names, and even gives them hugs. 

“People are friendly out there,” Marks said. “There’s this misconception of homeless people and I think that really needs to be addressed. They’re human beings, man.”

For Marks, street photography is his means of trying to understand things that might be difficult for him to wrap his head around and be exposed to something new.

“I have had extensive conversations with homeless people and I'll leave that conversation, give them a hug, walk away, and think to myself not, ‘What's wrong with this person?’” Marks explained. “I think to myself, ‘What the hell is wrong with me? Why have I never done that before? Why am I not doing it more? If every citizen would just do a little bit more, if we could all just do a little bit in our own way, I don't need giving out money or whatever, just do something right because we all live in the society together, right?”

During his first two years of shooting street photography, whenever he encountered a homeless person, Marks would try and do what he could for them. This meant buying food, clothes, and blankets for them. However, he soon realized he was nearly going broke doing it. 

“I had to realize that I can't solve this problem on my own,” Marks explained. “The best thing I can do is to continue to take images and just expose what's out there. I want people to look at things and understand that the world that we live in is not all luxury automobiles. We're not all making six figures and driving Teslas in Reno right now.”

As someone with three degrees and working multiple jobs to make a steady income, Marks understands that he’s fortunate enough just to be in the position he is today. Growing up, he worked as a janitor cleaning toilets and flipping burgers at fast food restaurants. These experiences have helped him develop the work ethic he has today, as well as appreciate the opportunities he has. Due to the suddenness of his back injury in the toboggan accident, Marks also understands that life can change in an instant.

Life Lessons

“What I’ve learned unequivocally is that we're all one step away from [homelessness],” Marks said. “It's not a cliche to say people live paycheck to paycheck. God forbid, if you injure yourself.”

But that doesn’t go without saying that shooting street photography and encountering displaced people hasn’t taken an emotional toll on Marks, too. 

“[Encountering homeless] women and children is really difficult for me,” Marks explained. “Then in 2017, I had a little bit of a moral dilemma because I ran into somebody who I actually knew, that was living between two dumpsters with her dog. It really put me in a head space that I didn't have a reference frame for dealing with emotionally. It was the first time I ever really had to re-evaluate what I was doing and I struggled with it. I didn't post for months and I didn't even touch my camera for weeks. I had to talk to some professional photographers and peers and then I decided the right thing to do was to continue after the advice of a very good friend of mine.”

Recently, Marks has looked beyond the city of Reno to explore and experience the world through street photography. “My latest thing is international street photography and that's where my focus is headed towards in the future,” Marks said. “I’ve gone to other countries and started seeing the impoverishment in Mexico. I did street photography in Oaxaca, Puebla, and Mexico City and it's crazy down there. It's a lot different than Prague because when I'm doing street photography in Prague, it's all castles on the river. It's a whole different aesthetic.”

Sadness and Opportunity with a Changing Reno

Reno holds a special place in Marks’ heart. For a street photographer, Reno provides a unique challenge as a city that is constantly evolving and changing itself. In just the past few years that Marks has been shooting street photography in Reno, he has seen the Biggest Little City change. Unfortunately, he’s not sure it’s for the better.

“Reno is re-defining itself and I have mixed emotions about what's going on in the city, to be perfectly honest,” Marks said. “Lack of preservation, primarily, and the housing issues speaks for itself. But it’s the reality we live in.” 

To Marks, it seems the more downtown is trying to develop, bulldozing motels, moving community meals away from the downtown shelter, the more everything else is getting displaced. 

“Shutting down the Greyhound bus station isn’t really solving anything in my observation. It’s just kind of displacing it,” Marks said. “You can sweep dust under the rug, but there's still dust under the rug and it's still going to come trickling out. I think it’s really obnoxious that Jacobs [Entertainment] comes in here with a $500 million development plan and no preservation [for what was removed], whatsoever. The whole Fourth Street corridor has been completely gentrified. It's crazy to me to just push around homeless people the way we do in order to make way for another brewery. ”

But as a street photographer, the reinvention of Reno provides ample opportunities for Marks. Due to Reno’s comparatively small size for a major city, over the years Marks has gotten to learn the streets like the back of his hand. He knows exactly where the light is going to be in a certain location at any point of the day, any day of the year. But it’s his thorough understanding of Reno’s streets that creates opportunities to recognize and document the changes he sees firsthand. 

“I'm waiting for the proverbial dust to settle and see what kind of scape I have now because for me as a street photographer, it's great,” Marks said. “It's like Inception, the movie, because as the city is reinventing, we’ve brought in all these awesome artists and street muralists and so [the city] never looks the same. I can go out in one summer and shoot the same place and get a completely different look than I did the summer before.”

Reno being such a small city, however, does provide its own set of specific challenges for a street photographer like Marks.

“Over the years I'm constantly developing my style and pushing myself to try to find something new,” Marks explained. “There are some things I try not to shoot too much anymore: the Circus Circus Clown, Manzanita Lake, and the Reno Arch I think should all be on a broad “No Shoot” list, but that's just my personal opinion.”

Another recent series from his Instagram feed renostreetphotography.

Safety First

Whenever he goes out to shoot, Marks’ goal is never to make himself noticed. If he’s seen taking photos, that compromises the quality of candidness in his photos. It’s natural for people to change their demeanor when they see their photo being taken. That’s an example of when street photography becomes street portraiture, and Marks vows never to pass off any of his photos as something it’s not. That being said, safety is his first and foremost priority, especially for his students when he takes them out on a shoot with him. 

“We do what we have to as photographers to get our shots,” Marks said. “But you have to obey the law, 100%. You don't impede a police investigation, block doorways to businesses, and most certainly don't ever go into moving traffic, especially in this town nowadays. There's no image on the planet that's worth getting [attacked] over.”

Everything else, however, is fair game for anyone walking around in the public domain. If he encounters anyone that becomes upset about their photo being taken, Marks does what he can to de-escalate the situation.

“I never purposely aggravate somebody,” Marks said. “The last thing I want to do is disrupt that person any more than that person's life is [already] disrupted. I've never had a physical altercation and have no intention of having a physical altercation. I don't carry weapons. I know street photographers that do and I find that disgusting. That’s a good way to get yourself killed or hurt somebody and I'm not looking to do either one of those two things.”

Street Photography vs. Journalism

When he’s out shooting photos on the street, Marks admits he’s not looking for anything in particular. Most of the time, he’s simply just documenting the things that he finds interesting. 

“I’m honestly winging it out there,” Marks said. “I like interesting characters and that doesn't come from any specific demographic, that just spans the whole gamut for me. I'm also a big fan of negative space, because I think negative space when used properly is an extremely powerful compositional tool.”

Although Marks takes to the streets with the intentions of shooting street photography, his work at times has also adapted to a form of journalism. He encounters a wide variety of people, but he approaches them all the same. 

“I think anybody that knows me knows that I have good intentions,” Marks explained. “There's a video on the street photography page when I made a little time-lapse video between the police, the paramedics, the fires, the hookers, and the gang bangers. Now, they're all the same to me, I don't treat any of them any differently. Obviously I treat the law enforcement with the respect they deserve, but I have also helped them as well.” 

In his time shooting street photography, Marks once accidentally aided in the arrest of three people who committed assault because he happened to photograph it when it happened. Another time, he got trapped behind a dumpster between two SWAT teams as they addressed an active situation. But as an experienced contributor for This is Reno and Reno News and Review, he understands when to classify certain photos he takes as street photography, and when they qualify as journalism. 

“I have to come home and say to myself, ‘Okay, that's not even a street photography image, that's journalism,” Marks said. “[Journalism] is a whole different world. So that [image] goes into this pile, this [image] goes into that pile.”

Marks has also done photography for the local alt-weekly the Reno News and Review.

Grateful for His “Wild, Wild West” Community

By documenting and posting the things he sees on the street, Marks feels as if it’s his way of giving back to the city of Reno. He has a unique relationship with the city, one that he feels has been mutually beneficial.

“I’m grateful for my followers and the city,” Marks said. “They're very supportive of me and I think it's because the art form [of street photography] was never about Eric Marks. It was always about the things that I see on the street.”

Like an itch that can’t be scratched, every day provides another opportunity for avid street photographers to experience and witness something new.

“The world is the best subject studio possible,” Marks said. “It's constantly just in a state of flux every second of every minute. So it's hard to really not to take a good picture if you’ve developed the skills and have the desire to do so.”

Marks hopes street photography encompasses that state of flux in such a concentrated area like Reno. To him, it’s what makes Reno...Reno.

“I absolutely believe that Reno was, is, and always will be the Wild West,” Marks said. “It's kind of cool in terms of a photographer's perspective, at least it is for me.There's history here.” 

Thanks to the work of street photographers like Marks, that history of Reno is being documented every day and night for the world to see.  

Reporting by Scott King for Our Town Reno

Lexie's Gift: Helping People Feel Cute even during Coronavirus and #Maskup

Carrying on a Daughter’s Mission Through a Pandemic

Before the coronavirus shutdown halted everything including donation drives and turned proms into virtual preparations, Lexie’s Gift provided prom attire and children’s clothing to those who needed it.

With in-person proms now canceled, Lexie’s Gift has transitioned to finding other ways to help the community during the pandemic.

Instead of handing out bedazzled shoes and matching handbags, Barbie Marcoe said she’s now working behind the scenes to fund the making of masks and sponsoring meals to feed the community.

Marcoe is running a GoFundMe in partnership with the Northern Nevada Mask Coalition, which is comprised of local businesses, seamstresses, community members and 3D printer operators, to provide funding for the local production and distribution of masks.

“We all have a role in Northern Nevada’s public health and economic recovery. In order to bring our economy back to life, everyone needs to be #maskedup to avoid more crippling shutdowns and to ensure we keep our community and medical staff safe,” the GoFundMe she’s a part of says.

Behind the Scenes

“We are not taking credit for any of that because these are all personal groups that are just getting together and our ideas is just to be behind the scenes and help them keep in supplies and get the disposable masks for the people who need them,” Marcoe said of her #Maskup collective endeavor.

In normal times, Lexie’s Gift provides free prom attire for those who can’t afford all of the luxuries of the special night. Lexie’s Gift also usually distributes gently used clothing and shoes for children, teens and young adults and daily necessity items like hygiene products.

Partners for different donation drives and initiatives in the past have included Volunteers of America, the Veterans Resource Center, Bristlecone Family Resources, The Eddy House, Project 150, Casa de Vida, the Libby Booth Elementary School, Women and Children of the Sierra, Project Sweet Dreams, The Ridge House and Our Center.

“Lexie lost her life in a car accident right before her 30th birthday. She was one of those people who believed that people deserve a gift rather than a handout and that's why we have the name, “Lexi's Gift.” She was doing clothing drives when she was in third grade. She just liked people to be able to feel cute and she thought it was a big thing,” Marcoe said. “We realized that it did make a difference in these people's lives that she was touching. So when she passed, we needed to remember her, but we also needed to make sure that all the good things she had done were continued and that we didn't lose sight of that.”

Current Challenges to Lexie’s Legacy

“[Lexie] would love that this community is doing great things in her name,” Marcoe said in an earlier interview with Our Town Reno. “I think she'd be pretty proud of all of us. “

Marcoe said she’s not able to accept new donations at this time because of the health logistics involved. She said she’s worried because usually around this time of year she’s providing clothing for spring and summer.

"We have a lot of kids at home right now who are used to a lot of organizations, not just ours, that provide, not just clothes but shoes, you know, kids' feet grow. So, shoes and spring things because a lot of these kids don't have clothes from last year because they moved from motel to motel. They don't have a drawer full of last season's stuff. So all of us, not just Lexie's Gift, but all of us are going to be insanely busy when everything opens back up," Marcoe said.

Marcoe usually provides high school students with what she calls a fun and dignified free prom fashion experience, including hundreds of dresses to choose from.

Buying New Clothes Instead of Donations

“I think it's going to be really questionable to be honest," Marcoe said in regards to collecting donations in the future.

She is still using funds and getting others to purchase new clothing though.

"When you see these three dollar t-shirts at Old Navy, that's what we're trying to buy. We're trying to buy up in quantity. We're asking people please buy new stuff. If you can, if you see it, it's on a great sale and you can afford to do it, please buy new stuff, have it shipped directly to your favorite charity so that we're not having to have stuff that's been in your storage. We're all going to be very careful on this kind of stuff because we can't afford for this to come back," Marcoe said.

She urges the community if they are doing spring cleaning, to hold on to and organize their items to donate later.

"We've got to pull together. This is not political. This is just a community and we have seen extreme efforts come out of this community. We have so many mask makers that when you ask me, 'How many masks do you think are going out?' I can't even answer because we have so many people,” she said of current efforts.

“We have people learning to sew so they can make masks. We have businesses who are barely keeping their doors open, making meals for people. I think as a community, we're rocking this. We really are. We just need to be patient. More than anything, this is always my motto: We just need to be kind because everyone is living this a different way. “

A Final Message to the Community

“Some people are fearful of losing their jobs. Some people have lost their jobs. Some people have had their hours cut. We just need to continue to be kind,” Marcoe said as her message to the community.

“We're getting there. We can see things coming together. But we got to take care of these kids that are living this, that are home with nervous parents. As lovely as everything sounds, it's hard being home with your kid 24/7. We've got to do what we can to help these families get through this,” she said always emphasizing families in need.

Reporting by Lucia Starbuck for Our Town Reno

Robb Dunmore, Still Pursuing a Charge to Make Reno Pesticide Free

Trying to Make All Local Parks Safe from Roundup

Robb Dunmore’s involvement in the Pesticide-Free Reno campaign, which has had many twists and turns, and finally few positive outcomes, began in the summer of 2015. As a high school science teacher and summer camp supervisor, he had taken a group of summer camp kids from Truckee to Idlewild Park for a picnic in Reno.

“As we were eating our sandwiches, a guy came by spraying something from a backpack,” Dunmore said. “It was pretty alarming that he was spraying so close to our kids. I felt like he was spraying whatever he was spraying directly on their sandwiches.”

Dunmore approached the man and found out that he was a city worker just doing his job spraying Roundup, a pesticide commonly used to kill weeds. 

“He didn’t even have a mask on [to protect himself], so there were concerns on a lot of levels,” Dunmore said. “So after I brought the kids back to Truckee, I came back to Reno over the next couple of days and tried to figure out what was going on.”

What concerned Dunmore so much about the use of weed-killer sprays like Roundup is the presence of the chemical glyphosate, which has been found in court to be linked to the development of non-Hodgkins Lymphoma. Consequently, the use of weed-killers like Roundup has been banned in a number of communities across the country. So on that summer day at Idlewild Park, not only were his camp children being put at risk, but also the city worker himself because he wasn’t wearing a self-protective mask.

A California appeals court has set a June 2 hearing in the case of Dewayne “Lee” Johnson v. Monsanto, an agrochemical and agricultural biotechnology corporation founded in 1901. In 2018, a unanimous jury awarded Johnson $289 million finding that not only did Monsanto’s glyphosate-based herbicides cause Johnson to develop non-Hodgkins lymphoma, but that the company (which has since been bought by Bayer AG) also knew of the cancer risks and failed to warn Johnson.

Dunmore went on his own quest to make Reno parks free of Roundup after a worrisome 2015 picnic.

An Insufficient Pesticide-Free Program


Dunmore’s concern led him to a simple Google search of the Reno Parks District, where he came across a campaign called Pesticide-Free Parks. He wanted to learn more about the campaign, so he went to find somebody from the Reno Parks Department to talk to. It took a few tries, but eventually he was able to sit down with one of their employees who was upfront with him about the chemicals they use in their policy.

“What I found out was pretty discouraging,” Dunmore said. “The Pesticide-Free Parks program is a little bit of a falsehood in my mind. It turned out that only 12 of the 87 sites that the Reno Parks and Recreation Department manages are actually pesticide-free.”

What Dunmore noticed, however, was that the 12 designated pesticide-free parks were the smaller, less-frequently used ones in the city. To make matters worse, after speaking with the head of the Reno Parks and Recreation Department, Dunmore was told that even the 12 pesticide-free parks were still sprayed with glyphosate a few times a year. It was then Dunmore decided he had to do something.

“I got together with a couple friends that were also pretty adamant about the spraying of glyphosate in our parks,” Dunmore said. “Our main concern is [glyphosate] getting flushed down into the Truckee River, our water supply and livelihood in Reno.”

Canyon Creek Park in Ward 1 was one of the twelve parks which were touted by the city as pesticides-free in September 2015.

Reno’s Director of Parks Points to More Rain, Lack of Volunteers

According to Reno’s Director of Parks and Recreation Jaime Schroeder there can be some confusion between the application of herbicides and pesticides.

“We're still testing some alternative products like pre-emergent herbicides,” Schroeder said. “But because they are alternative products and organic controls, they have limited effectiveness.”

The official transition to pesticide-free measures announced in the fall of 2015, and implemented in 2016, also came at a time with more rain after years of drought. Consequently, Schroeder said in our interview, there was a significant increase in weeds that required attention. Additionally, he says, the city was left with less community support than hoped for.

“When this program was implemented, there were lots of promises about groups volunteering to step forward and assist with weed control at one of our 12 pesticide-free parks,” Schroeder said. “Whenever we had additional help from community service workers, we would try to use that method to be able to tackle some of the weeds. Unfortunately, we did not really get the follow-through from [volunteer groups] but the[ designated] parks went ahead and continued to stay pesticide-free.”

Speaking as a concerned citizen and a naturalist, ecologist, and science teacher, Dunmore also took his fight to City Council. He explained how the Truckee River flows from its source in Lake Tahoe all the way to Pyramid Lake, providing a vital water supply to people living in the otherwise dried-up high desert region. When chemicals like glyphosate are sprayed on our parks, they can be swept into the river by rainfall; contaminating the residents of the greater Reno area’s water supply. Since the Truckee River connects so much of our region, the problem of a contaminated waterway, Dunmore explains, spans three municipalities, two states, several counties, and hundreds of thousands of residents including the Paiute people.

A New Movement Separate from the City’s Initiative

Out of his concern for the well-being of the greater Reno community and its watershed came a Facebook group called “Pesticide-Free Reno.” Separate from the city’s Pesticide-Free Parks campaign, Dunmore’s group of advocates began speaking at city council meetings.

“We addressed our concern to the mayor and the city council,” Dunmore said. “Not with a whole lot of results but enough of a squeaky wheel to get the grease. We were granted a kind of special city council meeting with just the parks department and also the head of public works.”

Dunmore says the city council was open to hearing what they had to say. The city’s main explanation for the use of weed-killing sprays like Roundup was the limits of their budget and cuts to staffing, to the point that they don’t have the manual labor available to pull weeds.

“We suggested all the other alternative ways to deal with weeds, horticultural vinegar and steam treatments,” Dunmore said, citing strategies used by cities like Davis and Fairfield in California that have adopted pesticide-free methods.

He says they then learned from Bryan Heller, Assistant Director of Public Works, that Roundup is used by Washoe County as well, in over 1,300 locations. So Dunmore says Public Works sprays pesticides much more heavily than just in the city parks. Additionally, Dunmore says he found out local authorities had retrofitted trucks to spray weed-killers more efficiently around the 5,000 plus miles of the greater Reno area.

A screengrab for the new Facebook group after disappointment set in with the city’s effort.

Going After Pesticide Spraying Trucks

The pesticide spraying trucks Dunmore is referring to can also pose a risk to Reno residents. One of the advocates in the Facebook Pesticide-Free Reno group became involved after she says she and her dog got inadvertently sprayed directly by one of the trucks. Another resident says they got sprayed by one of the trucks while gardening outside, developing respiratory problems soon after. When incidents like that happen, Dunmore says, the city could lose more money than they are saving by creating opportunities for lawsuits.

“I think [the city is] really lucky she didn't pursue legal action and sue because she had quite the case,” Dunmore said of the gardener. “One lawsuit from something like that would negate their entire plan of pesticide spraying. A couple million dollar lawsuit would wipe out everything that they're trying to do [by saving on] the cost of pulling weeds or hiring people to do it the right way.”

According to Heller, Parks no longer uses truck-mounted sprayers. However, they still use trucks built specifically for weed application and have added cameras to the trucks for record-keeping purposes, to also verify claims made against the truck’s operators and drivers.

One positive Dunmore says that came out of their meetings with the city council was the acceptance by Heller to attend a conference in Bakersfield, CA, about the effects of glyphosate put on by the organization Moms Across America. Yet, Dunmore says he nor anyone else in the group received any follow-up or feedback from his experience at the conference.

“I think that there was some genuine concern [from the city council], but not from a standpoint of a true environmental concern or actual concern for the health of our citizens, kids, or wildlife,” Dunmore said. “I think it was more [the threat of potential lawsuits] that we brought to their attention. Our concerns were never validated and no one ever followed up with our discussions.”

Now, Dunmore and the Pesticide-Free Reno group say they have re-directed their mission.

Trying to Educate the Public Again

“We didn't want to be discouraged,” Dunmore said of the lack of progress. “So we went on to try to confront the problem in a more productive manner because we weren't getting anywhere with the city. To my knowledge today, they're spraying just as heavily as ever …”

Pesticide-Free Reno has now focused on a social campaign to educate and change public opinion on the safest methods to remove weeds.

“The root of the problem is [answering], ‘What is a weed?’” Dunmore said. “So we've done things like launch a dandelion challenge with hashtags on Facebook where people take pictures of dandelions on their lawn and #thisisnotaweed and things like that to try to more change the public opinion of what is a weed and and the health risks [of chemicals like glysophate].”

They’ve also organized Earth Day events and have approached the Washoe County School District about their use of glyphosate products on playgrounds where children play.

“We've moved on to rallying the community behind healthier options of not contaminating our world and especially our watershed with chemicals,” Dunmore said. “I [also] help run a organic garden education program for low income and underprivileged kids in our area.”

Dunmore says he finds more hope in the younger generation, and that even if the battle he is fighting for is long, he is confident his side will eventually prevail.

Confidence in the Next Generation But Worried about Homeowners

“We found that the education work that we do is more impactful to make a change for the next generations,” Dunmore said. “The older generations and some of our city leaders are stuck in their ways and are very resistant to change. But we've found younger people and people that care about their health, their family's health, and the environment are far more open to making positive change.”

In addition to educating the younger generation, the group also seeks to educate private homeowners in the area about the risks of using products like Roundup.

“[Many private homeowners] don't use the recommended guidelines on the back of the application in the first place,” Dunmore said. “Then when weeds don't respond, people normally just spray more. So a bigger problem is actually private ownership and so we are starting to focus our energy there where we could do the most good and [facilitate] the most change.” 

Dunmore says they still have watchdog people making sure that when public workers are spraying that they are wearing respirators and applying it appropriately.

Their overarching goal has not changed.

“We're still fighting to this day to make a true pesticide free parks program in Reno,” Dunmore said. “Our goal was to have all of the park sites managed by Reno to use natural and organic weed control measures.”

Different groups have come into the fray of this debate, and Dunmore looks down on some of the tactics others are using.

“There was an active group before us that we are really careful not to be associated with,” Dunmore said, citing an incident in 2015 where protestors threatened to drink out of a Roundup bottle and spilled hoax substance at a city council meeting. “We want to be on the positive side of the campaign and not associate ourselves with that kind of activism.”

As it stands today, the twelve designated parks remain officially pesticide-free. The Pesticide-Free Parks program was originally implemented as a two-year trial. Their two-year evaluation determined that alternative measures simply aren’t as effective as applying pesticides. However, they decided to continue going pesticide-free in those parks. But there are no current plans to expand the program to other parks.

“The Parks Department is responsible for 87 parks, 19 school sites, 54 restrooms, 78 play structures and 34 miles of trail and 1,700 acres of open space,” Schroeder said. “We only have 35 people to do that and we're down to 22 people from the recession. So it's a very large challenge to be able to maintain everything that we do have to maintain.”

Maintenance and Renewed Hope during Coronavirus

In light of the recent shutdowns and closures due to the Covid-19 outbreak, the Parks Division is still operating as usual to maintain their parks.

“Our recreation side is shut down,” Schroeder said. “But on the Parks side, the crew is still coming to work every day and doing maintenance operations that may need to be done in order to maintain all of our parks.”

The pandemic is also allowing for a possible reset on many community challenges, so why not how we handle weeds as well?

“Nevada's been a little behind on environmental issues, but we're usually quick to follow other states like California,” Dunmore said of why he also still keeps his hopes up. “I just don't see any reason that Reno couldn't be a leader in a new green movement and really set the bar for the way we treat our water, our wildlife and the health of our community. Reno could be a shining example and then as a state, Nevada can really take the lead and has a chance to do great things on the issue.”

“It's a great goal to try to go pesticide-free in all of our parks,” Schroeder said. “It's just at this time, it’s not something that we can feasibly do and still be able to manage all of the weeds in all of the parks.”

Reporting by Scott King for Our Town Reno

Tim Mahoney, From Improv to Isolation, Hoping to Bounce Back

Time Travel Backwards

Before the COVID-19 era, walking into the Reno Improv theater, the intimate space was quickly filled with smiles, laughter and greetings, with mutual respect between the audience and performers acting out bizarre and hilarious scenarios.

Now the theater is closed and its affiliated website has a glaring banner that reads “Shows and Classes Postponed”.

Tim Mahoney, a teacher, performer, and board member hopes its success will return, because of its importance to the wellbeing of many.

“What we're really about, is community first,” Mahoney said in an interview over the phone during this period of confinement. “It’s also a place where it's safe mentally for people to come in, be creative without the fear of their ideas being judged or told that they're not good enough or whatever,” he said of the in person experience which is no longer possible right now.

“It’s been a tough, tough few weeks,” Mahoney said. “It feels like a lot longer than that. This is the first time in almost 10 years, that I haven't performed on a fairly weekly basis. Certainly it's the first time in a long time, that I haven't been to a theater in more than a few weeks, so it's been a challenge.”

Missing the Interaction with Live Audiences

Mahoney says one of his favorite parts of performing is showing the audience a good time and, “ keep[ing] everybody's heads up a little bit. And one thing we do at  Reno Improv is try to do that on a weekly basis anyways with providing our audiences a place to come and laugh for a little while and take their minds off things. So not being able to provide that absolutely necessary service of just providing a little bit of levity to people's lives is something that I think we miss as performers, but I think that our audience also misses too.”

Mahoney is also dealing with a sharp loss of income. ”A big part of my income is based through the theater and through teaching classes, so there's been a challenge that goes along with that.  Yeah, it's definitely some unknowns that we're dealing with [during] these strange times,” he said.  “Not knowing when we're going to be back up and running is challenging.”

Mahoney says Reno Improv, which has been around “about five years,” already faced challenges with a rapidly changing Reno. “What we don't wanna do is lose the identity of the community that we're already in,” he said going forward.

Thriving on Diversity

Mahoney said performing and teaching in such a diverse and open place has been eye opening for him and others.

“Getting all the different people of Reno in the same room together and getting them to create things together, be vulnerable and honest… And when we're vulnerable and honest on stage at an improv (show), you know, we find out a lot about the reality of things around us.”

This value gives him optimism for the future. “I'm optimistic that when this all blows over and they will want to come out on the other side that our community will be stronger as in so much that we've had to band together.”

Travel forward now, and foresee how when the performers will take their bow, including Mahoney, there will be roaring applause yet again in a sanctuary for collective expression.

Reporting by Gracie Gordon for Our Town Reno