Last Motels Standing: Capri Motel

mellow

the weather was perfect

it felt so nice to have a summer storm this year

the smell of rain and stormy clouds 

the puddles crowding my feet 

raindrop kisses on my glasses 

i pass by this motel all of the time 

this has become my favorite one

the motels dense, forest green and fading sand colors 

pale blue curtains draped over the windows

little plants at my eyes

i met a dog named luna, she was a sweet girl 

this place reminded me of

moments i’ll never forget

i’ll always keep this between me and you  

it must have been something in the air or whatever they say 

you were the sweetest 

you were the prettiest 

i would laugh

you would smile

you’re something special

i can’t help but feel the same still

and i say all of this with a fond smile

i’m almost done with that book you recommended, damn it’s good

Our Town Reno Photos and Essay by Jake Lorgé

Meghan Ebert, Running for Ward 4 and the People of North Valleys

Running for a Reno City Council seat, Ward 4, that has see-sawed in the past, Meghan Ebert likes her chances in November. She says her message of working for the people of North Valleys is starting to resonate with would-be voters when she meets with them. 

“We don't feel like we're heard out here,” Ebert told Our Town Reno, during a recent sit down interview at a locally owned coffee shop on Golden Valley Road, Superstitions Java. 

“We don't feel like we have a voice. And that's one of the reasons why I'm running. I want to … make sure that we have a seat at the table. We pay the same taxes, but we don't always feel like we're treated the same,” she said.

The incumbent she is facing Bonnie Weber is a long-time office holder. Weber previously served as a Washoe County Commissioner, and won the Ward 4 seat in 2018 against then incumbent Paul McKenzie.  But Weber has lost the seat before, in a 2014 election against McKenzie. Last year, Weber also faced scrutiny from the Nevada Commission on Ethics into lunches she organized. These were attended by developers, herself and staff, and paid for by prominent North Valleys development companies, including one hired to provide water to the 5,000-unit Stonegate project. 

The panel ultimately concluded Weber didn’t break the law but called on the City of Reno to come up with new rules to adequately address similar situations, during which city staff work at closed-door events  organized by an elected official.

Ebert is proud of endorsements she’s gotten from Reno firefighters, Planned Parenthood, the Nevada Central Labor Council , the Northern Nevada Building Trades and the Sierra Club, which she says reflect her values and beliefs.  “I’m very pro-union. I think that they do a great thing for wages and quality of life for workers. I'm very supportive of our first responders and our firefighters. I feel like they need more support as well and funding and, we need more first responders up in the North Valleys for sure with all the development happening out here. We're not keeping pace with the number of first responders that we have in the area.”

In light of this, and recent endorsements (see above postcard), Ebert feels confident, having garnered 1727 votes to Weber’s 2279 votes in the primary.  The third place finisher Dennis Owen got 1358 votes. During his campaign, he spoke out against uncontrolled growth without proper infrastructure, a message shared by Ebert. 

“I like to remind everybody that more people have voted against the incumbent than for her,” Ebert said of one of her campaign strategies, while going door to door, holding coffee talks and attending advisory board meetings.

“I think we have a master plan that we're not currently following,” she said of managing local growth.  “Why aren't we following that? If it doesn't work, then we should be adjusting it. If it does work and we're just choosing not to follow it because developers would like special use permits, we need to reevaluate why we're doing that. We need to look at the big picture here. Are we going to be a cohesive city, or are we just putting in warehouses wherever there's open space? I think we need to look at how we're developing. Are we developing smart? Are we building communities or are we just kind of filling wherever we can with whatever we want without much concern for any kind of plan.”

Ebert has concerns about available resources including enough water and infrastructure.  “You know we need to take that into consideration and also take into consideration the impact to the people that live here … you know, the increased traffic that comes with increased development, what are we doing to make sure that we have infrastructure to keep pace with the development that's happening.”

A mother of three, Ebert has concerns for the future.  

“Because I'm a first time candidate and I don't have any kind of developer ties, I don't have those conflicts of interest,” she said. “I’m doing this purely because I care about my community and what kind of legacy we're leaving for our children. I don't want to raise my kids in a neighborhood surrounded by warehouses. I don't think it's safe to put in thousands of houses without increasing our numbers of firefighters and police in the area. I think we're going to reach a tipping point where we're going to start having property losses, probably loss of life and damages because we're not taking into consideration the people that live here. And that's why I'm running because I really care about my ward. I care about my family and I care about everybody else's family out here.” 

Last year, the City of Reno finally reached a $4.5 million agreement to conclude litigation related to the 2017 Swan Lake flooding in Lemmon Valley, a terrible occurrence which affected her friends and family, and also prompted Ebert to get into local politics. 

“The people that were impacted had water from the Reno Stead sewage treatment facility flood their homes. The city of Reno had an opportunity to settle with these residents to give them funds to fix the damage caused to their homes. And the city council voted against that, not everyone, but in particular, our current representative. That to me is unacceptable. These are her constituents that are affected by this, and she voted against doing what was right and fixing the damage caused to their homes,” she said.

She doesn’t see that situation as a done deal either, saying there still needs to be better treatment of the Reno Stead water facility.  “It's still not considered safe for humans to be around,” she said. “I mean, you can use it for livestock feed crops, but you can't use it in your vegetable garden. It's not safe. We need to look into how we can treat that water to a higher quality, so that water becomes usable. We're living in a desert and we're pumping this water into a lake. It's just dumped into this area to evaporate every day. And last I checked, we're dumping over 2 million gallons of water into this lake every single day.” 

Ebert says she’s a pro-environmental candidate.  “We have beautiful areas of Sagebrush and forest around us. And how do we embrace that? How do we build, or put in trails so we can enjoy these areas and treat them as the asset that they are and appreciate them, and, and not just level them to, you know, put in whatever development that it comes along.” Other ideas she would like to see more include covered parking areas with solar panels above them.

As a professional benefits analyst who does data analysis, financial reporting and audits, Ebert says she would also bring much needed scrutinizing to proposals under discussion at Council.

“I would definitely ask a lot of questions, make sure that we've thought of everything, you know, as far as traffic studies, when we're doing road construction, financial impact,” Ebert said, adding she would continuously seek resident and expert input.  “We definitely need somebody in there that can look at the numbers and analyze the data. And, and again, like I said, just look at the big picture and find out, what's really going to be the best and not just appease developer money. Sometimes things look great on paper, but when you really come down to, you know, the impact to the community, it's not so great. So just really digging deep into that data and not just looking at superficial presentations.”

Ebert has never run for office, and hopes people who themselves feel marginalized, and who say they’ve even given up on voting will consider voting for her or get into the process themselves. 

“That's why I'm running, so many people in this ward are very eager to express their displeasure, but their names aren't on the ballot. So if you are unhappy with things, it is up to you to be that change, or it's not going to change. It will be business as usual. So I urge you to step up and take on that challenge,” she said. 

Our Town Reno reporting, August 2022

Outside and Inside, Local Researcher Seeks to Help Local Plants

“Historically, a lot of the Great Basin, the lower elevations were dominated by plants like big sagebrush, but there's been invasions of non-native grasses, particularly cheatgrass being the biggest one that have changed the way that a lot of the native plants in the Great Basin are distributed,” Robert Shriver said during a recent interview, getting straight into his passion for local plant populations.

Shriver, an Assistant Professor of Plant Ecology & Population Biology at the University of Nevada, Reno, spends his work hours in very different places. As an ecologist, some of that time is spent in Nevada’s Great Basin, some in a classroom and other hours crunching away at numbers and research in his office. Through his work, Shriver said that it’s becoming clear to see that sagebrush populations in the Great Basin have been decreasing, and the way that ecosystems look around Northern Nevada has changed compared to how they looked 50 years ago. 

“These invasive annual grasses lead to increasing fire frequency, which has led to really big declines in a lot of the native species and especially the shrubs in the Great Basin.”

As an assistant professor, Shriver’s work includes teaching and mentoring students, collecting data in the field and using quantitative analysis to identify and find causes for changes in local ecosystems. Finding changes isn’t always easy. Shriver’s work requires establishing so-called transects, a flat line laid on the ground in an ecosystem, and long hours comparing the phenomena he sees in the fields to records that might be fifty years old or older.

“I tend to describe it as mind numbingly boring work in beautiful places,” Shriver said.

“One of the methods that we use a lot is tagging and marking plants along a transect,” the researcher explained. “We’ll go out, we'll establish a transect that we'll return to every single year and along those transects, either map or tag where the plants are, and we'll go back to them every single year, see whether that plant is still there, whether it's alive, how much it's grown and whether it's reproduced and if there's new plants along that. That gives us a really good understanding of what's happening to these populations.”

Shriver said that climate change was a central theme of the research that he does. Specifically, Shriver tries to look at how climate change will affect the United States and the Great Basin. As an ecologist, finding the ways that the world around us has changed and is going to change can help the plants and ecosystems that make Nevada special survive.

“One of the big questions that ecologists try to understand is how ecosystems are going to respond to changing environmental conditions,” Shriver said. “Being able to document that and anticipate where that's going to happen into the future can have a really big impact in identifying and building tools that can both help academics, but also people managing these ecosystems that are trying to anticipate coming changes.”

Growing up in Kansas, Shriver wasn’t surrounded by as much of a diverse range of ecosystems and plants as he does now. After going to university in Wyoming, Shriver became interested in ecology.

“It fills my desire to both be outside and understand the world around me, but, also, I get to come back and do a lot of problem solving, doing data analysis and doing other things that I really enjoy,” Shriver said. “The problem solving keeps me entertained all winter when I can't be outside.”

Our Town Reno reporting by Jesse Stone

Grandpa Wabbit, a Buckaroo with a Banjo Along the Truckee River

Walking along the banks of the Truckee most days in late morning you might feel as though time has warped back to the early days of Reno when buckaroos would come into town from the ranches of the Great Basin for rest and recreation and maybe a little music.

There he is- a cowboy- walking at a brisk pace from his home in Midtown to Idlewild Park and back. Old time music, coming from a modern music box hanging on his side, gives first notice, along with the beautiful vintage banjo hanging on his back, that Robert, often known as “Grandpa Rabbit”, is on one of his nearly daily walks along the river.

With his well-worn black hat and jeans or work pants tucked into a pair of roper cowboy boots, it would be easy to mistake Robert for one of Reno’s earlier residents. And he comes by the cowboy title honestly.

Robert grew up in Siskiyou County in far northern California on a family ranch with five siblings. His parents, who farmed in the south, migrated to the West after World War Two from the Missouri Ozarks and northern Alabama.

“A ranch is a ranch,” he laughs. He grew up listening to his mother play accordion, piano and organ. “I lived with my grandparents in Alabama for two  years, he says. ”I was ten years old when I started playing banjo with my grandfather.”

“You know the first time I came to Reno I was passing through for the Summer of Love in 1967. It was small then, of course. I actually had a friend who came through in 73 and ran out of gas. He wound up working as a dealer in a casino and never did leave and maybe with the price of gas now we should see the population rising even more quickly,” he suggests with a smile.

Robert ended up living all around Nevada and Oregon and raising a family, working at times as a restaurant chef and always back to ranching, cattle and sometimes dairy cows.

“With dairy every day the milk is coming in, so you make quicker money than waiting on beef cattle,” he points out. “When I was retiring, I spent so much time up here seeing my grandkids that my daughter said I might as well stay “

He is proud of the banjo he is carrying. “It’s a 1912 body,” he indicates, showing the beautiful instrument. He saw it on an auction site and it was being ignored because of a crack in the neck. 

“Somehow I ended up getting it,” he laughs. With a new neck and skin, the five string plays sweetly now.

On most days he stops to play for anyone who wants to listen, sometimes along the river, but nearly always at Idlewild Park where the ducks gather to hear him play.

“People thought I looked like a Disney character so they started calling me ‘Grandpa Rabbit’. I just love playing for people,” he adds and then says slyly “if people enjoy it that’s great. And if they don’t enjoy it, I enjoy annoying. I sometimes like to sit and play on my neighbor’s porch on a cul de sac and if strangers make the wrong turn they think ‘I saw that movie’ and turn back around quick.”

Since his skinhead banjo can’t handle if the weather is too cold or damp, there are days when Robert gets his walking in with just the music player on his back sending out cowboy songs of the past. “Back in the old days people carried a lamp to warm up the skin,” he says. “But I can’t really carry a lantern these days.“

Reno may be outgrowing its Biggest Little City nickname, but rest assured, buckaroos still walk the streets and the ducks approve.

Our Town Reno reporting by Dina Wood

Last Motels Standing: Easy 8 Motel

quiet on our side 

it doesn't get any easier 

a man sat at the bottom of the staircase screaming for someone in their room

over and over again

hurry up, hurry up

there wasn’t anyone else

the woman at the office let me walk around without any trouble, explaining myself and my purpose 

she said she wouldn’t answer any questions, i get it

the motel next door told me to leave 

i can’t blame them 

the Yamaha motorcycle almost took on a life of its own

i have never seen anything like it

you have to look out for yourself for once

don’t keep waiting but i’m wrapped up in intimate memories 

this terrible memory

i love seeing older RVs around town

it was the first thing i noticed when i was walking up

there was lots of police activity across the street at another motel 

quiet on our side, i'd rather keep it that way 

i’m just here to document what will be removed at one point 

just like me

removed 

Photos and Essay by Jake Lorgé for Our Town Reno

Craft Fair Benefitting Grieving Local Prenatal and Neonatal Parents

The Pregnancy & Infant Loss Support Organization of the Sierras (PILSOS) is a non-profit organization founded in 2013 focusing on supporting parents through one of the hardest times in their lives. A craft fair for fundraising and awareness will be held at Katie’s Garden at the Bridge Church, one of the Reno urban farm sites run by Farmily. The event is free to attend and includes goods sold by local craftsmen and a raffle. 

“We have an amazing lineup of talented artists that are providing them with the opportunity to buy local, handcrafted, unique items to give as gifts for themselves or their loved ones,” Daniel Fisher, Executive Director of PILSOS, explained. “The admission is free. Katie's Garden is a lovely, peaceful location. There is ample parking. They can enter the raffle for their choice of items at a low cost that in turn benefits a local non-profit.

For Jacque Hibbs, a parent, PILSOS provided a safe space to talk about her family’s loss. Being connected to and in the company of other parents who have experienced similar pain gave Hibbs a sense that she wasn’t alone.  

“Your grandparents, they lived a full life,” Hibbs said. “They had a full life, they did all the things. But when you lose a child, your child hasn't had that chance. I think it's harder for people to connect with that and be able to figure out how to console you as a parent or even converse with you as a parent, because it's not a loss that a lot of people have dealt with.”

In previous years, PILSOS has fundraised through a yard sale. It was becoming difficult to keep up with the huge amount of work needed to sponsor a yard sale, so PILSOS decided to try their hands at a craft fair this year.

Nineteen local vendors will be taking part, with some of the proceeds going toward A Time for Remembrance event hosted by PILSOS later in the year, a special time for parents to remember their lost loved ones. 

“Reno is not a very big place and everyone, at some point, is going to experience a form of loss,” Hibbs said. “We all do, but when it's your child, it hits different. If you go, you're supporting an organization that is helping people get through life. Losing your child is life altering and you would be supporting a cause that helps moms and dads be able to have somewhere to go and talk and be able to remember their child.  Because in our society, sometimes we're expected to move on a lot quicker than we would like to.”

There will also be a raffle during the August event, where every one of the vendors who has signed up for the event have agreed to donate one of the items from their booth, which will be entered as prizes for the raffle. One ticket can be purchased for one dollar, six tickets can be purchased for five dollars and 26 tickets can be purchased for $20. Participants will have their phone number and name written down, meaning they can win the raffle even if they aren’t in attendance for the drawing.

Our Town Reno reporting by Jesse Stone

UNR Student Helps Organize International Climate Justice Forum

“We're getting to the point where I don't know exactly the amount of time that we have left to try to mitigate the climate crisis, but it is something that has been placed on our generation,” Zane Taylor says. “We've seen that policy makers are not willing to work with it, especially among the older generations. So it's really thrown on our generation specifically.” 

Taylor, a UNR student in international affairs, and summer intern at the Unitarian Universalist Association office at the United Nations, has been busy helping organize an online webinar on climate change scheduled for August 4th.

The event will be free to attend and feature a diverse set of speakers. Participants who register online but don’t attend the webinar will receive a Zoom recording of the event after its conclusion. Titled “More Than We Inherited: Youth-Led Climate Justice Initiatives”, Taylor says the name reflects the responsibility of the younger generation to take action and preserve the Earth’s climate. 

The United Universalist Association office is one of many faith-based organizations operating at the United Nations. The world body is more known for its veto-marred Security Council meetings and different aid organizations, but it also has offices for different religions. “It is a faith that originally started as a denomination of different Abrahamic religions, so Christianity, but we've shifted away from the scope of having a shared deity or a set holy scripture,” Taylor said of Unitarian Universalists. “We go off of seven principles that hope to reconnect us to the interdependent level of life. Those include stuff along the lines recognizing the inherent work and dignity of every person, the right of conscience and the use of democratic processes within our congregations and within society as a whole.”

Taylor said that the upcoming climate event welcomes and hopes to inspire participants from all generations and faiths, whether that be persuading someone to join a local organization, signing a petition, or urging a local politician to vote a certain way. 

“We're trying to get youth involved in the climate fight because the youth and at the domestic level is where the change needs to happen before it can go international,” Taylor said. “A lot of people think that the United Nations has all this power to affect a lot of concrete policies where the United Nations is mainly a system to get international collaboration.”

Anyone interested in registering for this event can visit https://uua.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJErf-uurDIiHtGOrt_tWulCwrhg6mwLmzcA

Meeting Dan, a Steady Presence in Downtown Reno and a Master of Recycling

In a city that seems to rebrand itself daily, the figure of a quiet man, pushing what appears to be a rolling landlocked boat buoyed by full rounded trash bags, has been a steady presence for nearly four decades.

Dan speaks to those who speak to him, but spends much of his day traveling silently and slowly through Downtown and Riverside, sometimes picking up things people have left for him to reuse and recycle, sometimes stopping to rearrange his bags, maybe occasionally having a smoke, tipping his ash into an ashtray he keeps on the top of his carefully balanced cart.

A hello gets a “Huyup” back from Dan and maybe a wave. He appears content in his solitude, walking every day for hours on end.

“The doctor says I’m in good health, so I just keep walking ,” he says quietly.  “ I used to take all kinds of aluminum cans to recycling,  but they quit taking them, so I don’t now.” It worries him. “You shouldn’t waste things,“ he asserts softly. 

Dan continues to sort as he talks about moving here from San Jose those many years ago. “I’m really a Nebraska boy- from Omaha.”

He has found a home in Reno, a home that doesn’t involve doors or a roof. “I have a doorway I sleep in,” he says, pointing toward Downtown. “About a mile over there. Every day of the year,” he smiles.

Dan used to eat more often at St Vincent’s and still uses some of the street outreach food pantries and public meals. But mainly now he says he finds food that people have thrown away, in bins, behind restaurants and stores. “I eat it- there’s plenty of good food wasted. And I feed the birds with it,”  he adds.

The bag he is arranging  has partial loaves of bread, still in the wrapper, and an open bag of carrots. He finds another plastic bag to sort the food. People in the neighborhoods he walks through often give him extra food, a sandwich, something they have cooked, or on a hot day, bottles of water and juice.

When asked how his life in Reno makes him feel he cracks one of his fleeting soft smiles.

He looks up and he says: “I’m good. I’m just happy, happy, happy.”

Our Town Reno reporting by Dina Wood

Reno Tattoo Shops Helping Unhoused School Children for First Day of School

Four tattoo shops in Reno, Aces Tattoo, Evolution Tattoo, Wolf City Tattoo and Lasting Dose Tattoo are running a community shoe drive, accepting donations of new shoes, clothes and underwear until August 6th to help unhoused or poorly sheltered Washoe County students, of which there are several thousand.

For Jake Griffin, a tattoo artist at Aces Tattoo, the effort is a way to help children get back some dignity.

“Your first day of school is the red carpet for kids,” Griffin said. “I remember being in school and seeing the kids that had nothing get ridiculed and mocked. It's not their fault. They’re kids, they can't afford to even buy their own wardrobe. My objective is to help as many kids as possible to avoid that scrutiny that comes with showing up for school on your first day, and everyone's showing off their outfit, and these kids don't have anything.”

The items gathered by the Shoe Drive will benefit the Washoe County School District’s Children in Transition program.  The Children in Transition program is designed to connect homeless students with any of the resources they need to succeed in their academic careers. That’s anything from backpacks and school supplies to musical instruments, and also basic clothes and shoes.  

“Seeing it work, seeing your community actually care and come out of the woodwork to support these kids, I think is amazing,” Children in Transition Program Coordinator Colin Usher said. ”It's twofold. You've got that community part which brings tears to my eyes. Then, at the end of the day, it's the students that get the support they need.”

The Shoe Drive comes after a separate charity event gathering toys for children living in motels last year.

Sitting at a red light, presents for nieces and nephews filling his car, Griffin looked across the street and saw kids playing at a motel with a soccer ball and sticks, still having the time of their lives. Thinking the kids deserved just as much as anyone else, an idea for a charity drive brewed in his mind for a few years until he mentioned the idea to his fiancée and fellow organizer, Grace Tecson. The motel drive gathering presents for children came to a sudden fruition, and the support from the community for this event was overwhelming to the point Griffin was left with leftover toys and backpacks.

This is when the partnership between the Washoe County School District and the tattoo shops was born. Fielding calls from parents looking for help on a daily basis according to Usher, the Children in Transition program could help distribute the presents and goods that the tattoo shops collected.

“Community partnerships are really important and each one contributes something different,” Usher said. “For them to come up with an idea for shoes and socks is great because a lot of organizations don't think about that sort of specific thing. You're gonna set them up first day of school looking good, feeling good, not so much standing out, but just blending in which a lot of these kids need.”

According to Usher, the Washoe County School District identified over two thousand Washoe County students as in transition last year. Factors involving the COVID-19 pandemic and the potential for children in transition to remain unidentified mean that the real number is likely even higher. 

“Oftentimes it's just inadequate housing,” Usher said. “It could be that they're doubled up with their aunt or uncle or grandmother or grandfather or another family. Some of them are unaccompanied youth, so they don't have a guardian or that adult in their life and they're living with another family, couch surfing essentially.”

Working at a tattoo shop, Griffin said he sees people from all walks of life, from bikers to lawyers, come through his doors.  Aces Tattoo has good relationships with other nearby shops, who agreed quickly to the idea of the Shoe Drive. The main goal is always the children, but the Shoe Drive is also an opportunity to show people that the stigma around tattoo shops doesn’t match up with reality. 

“Our shop has been open 27 years,” Griffin said.  “Before all this gentrification and before this neighborhood was Midtown, we were here. We've never left. We try to give back as much as we can, and we just want to show people that we care about our community, just as much as anybody else, if not more.”

Only new items will be accepted as donations.  Shoe sizes from 5T to 14Y are being accepted, and the shops are taking donations until August 6th.  Anyone who donates will be entered into a raffle, with first place earning a $500 gift certificate, second place a $250 gift certificate and third place eligible to earn merchandise from the shops. Raffle tickets can also be purchased at a price of $20. 

“We need as much help from the community as possible,” Griffin said. “Whether it be a simple pair of socks, underwear, five bucks from your pocket, 10 bucks or a $20 pair of shoes. People spend that in an iced tea at Starbucks, you know what I mean? Six bucks can make a difference in the kid's life, not just that day.”

Our Town Reno reporting by Jesse Stone

Feemster Name Honored at New Hug High Location

As the new Hug High School prepares to open its doors at its location in Sparks, it now includes the Feemster Family Resource Center.

Adrienne Feemster, 46, the granddaughter of the late Dolores Feemster, has been fighting to have the grounds of the old Hug High School, scheduled to become a Career and Technology Education Academy, named to honor the civil rights community activist. That effort was dealt a blow when two years ago the Washoe County School District instead chose to honor Debbie Smith, a former Nevada State Senator.

“I feel like there’s no compromise and one doesn’t negate the other,” Feemster said, when asked if the naming of the center was enough. “I feel like they were separate occurrences, separate issues.”

While she restated the importance of listening to the the community when renaming schools, she said she is keeping a positive outlook, and moving forward. 

The new Feemster center will provide families with guidance and referrals to local resources to improve their wellbeing. “It reminds me to focus on celebrating the honor to be able to see the Feemster name be connected with the school that my grandmother loved and cared for,” Feemster said.

She is currently gathering mementos and old yearbooks from her grandmother’s 30 plus years at Hug for a display case in the new center.  Among her many pursuits, she had advocated for the First Nations and Heritage clubs at Hug, “so students of all backgrounds could celebrate who they are and be proud of their roots and their heritage and make common ground.” 

Dolores Feemster died in 2018, at the age of 89, after a full life of helping others, including her persistent efforts to have local affordable housing built for abused women, senior citizens and families in need.

Our Town Reno reporting by Ariel Smith

Last Motels Standing: The Reno Royal Motor Lodge

july goes quick 

this motel appeared out of corner of my eye as i was driving around

a woman was smoking a cigarette on her porch as i began walking up

no one at the office

no one else around 

there were plenty of cars parked for at least someone to come around, i thought

this motel seems to be so tucked away as it is towered over by the Silver Legacy and the Eldorado 

sometimes, one of my favorite things about photographing these old motels is seeing the different sort of cars that are parked outside in the lots

like the lincoln for example

the deep grill on the front of it

the worn down paint job 

it just all seems so fitting 

they put an imaginary person into my mind of who might be the one driving it around, staying at the motel

one man emerged from his back corner room 

cargo shorts

collared blue, striped golf shirt 

except he didn’t get in a car, he made a quick turn behind the motel and disappeared 

a couple began staring at me as I was walking around taking my last few photos

and not just noticing me, but staring at me, following my every move, and didn’t stop looking at me until i rounded the corner and left 

heads on a well-oiled swivel, locked onto my every move

strange  

Photos and Essay by Jake Lorge for Our Town Reno

Washoe County's Bethany Drysdale Answers (Some of) Your Questions about the Cares Campus

We recently got to go on our first tour of the Cares Campus, and asked the community if there were any questions they would like asked.

Television crews got priority for questions as the tour ended, and time was running short, so we emailed a list of your questions which Washoe County officials said they preferred to respond to by email. This often leads to answers with careful, administrative language, as you’ll see in this report. 

We prefer in person interviews during which we can read body language and also ask follow up questions if we want to dig deeper, but we will take the information we can.

Several of the questions we asked by email concerning details of current and future finances, and where money is coming from, were not answered, even after several follow ups.

We did get indication that Volunteers of America and Karma Box Project will remain as operators of the shelter and the ModPod camp. 

“Washoe County Housing and Homeless Services (WCHHS) follows all local, state and federal regulations governing procurement as applicable. For both the Safe Camp and Emergency Shelter operator, an RFP was released as part of a competitive procurement,” Bethany Drysdale,  the Media and Communications Manager, wrote as to that process. 

We haven’t been able to find financial disclosures or salaries yet concerning Karma Box Project, but we will keep looking.

“For the Safe Camp, only one proposal was submitted by Karma Box Project.  It was a responsive and responsible proposal and we engaged contract negotiations,” she said. The Karma Box Project will be paid a little over half a million dollars per year, in a contract to operate the camp which could run until the end of June 2026. We have yet to be able to find salaries within Karma Box (see above).

“For the Emergency Shelter, two proposals were received, one from Volunteers of America and one from Adams and Associates,” Drysdale said. 

A May Washoe County staff report recommended to go with VOA until the end of June 2024, for $6.5 million annually, with the option to renew for three one-year periods thereafter.  Several employees of VOA Northern California and Northern Nevada make over $200,000 which local advocates for the unhoused have indicated feels excessive.  

The inside of the Cares Campus remains bare with staff working at open desks, right by rows of crammed metal beds.

Amid reports of women feeling threatened, Drysdale said this has been taken into consideration. 

“We have added security measures such as the bag scanner and metal detector at the entrance, and added more security personnel,” she wrote. “We try to get women into Our Place or other areas of assistance, but we will not turn women away, so it’s important to separate the men’s and women’s sleeping areas.”

Concerning requests for law enforcement and emergency services, Drysdale said “staff utilize the new REMSA Nurse Helpline for triage and 911 for emergencies. For medical emergencies REMSA and City of Reno Fire Department are dispatched. Additionally, Mobile One Docs are on site several days a week and soon will be present five days a week offering medical care to participants. Staff calls 911 for emergencies, as the Nevada Cares Campus is a Washoe County facility the Washoe County Sheriff's Office responds when dispatched.”

The tour took place during a cleaning day.

We also got some answers and promises to address the problem of the persistent lack of running water on the compound. 

 “Is there now safe running water for the compound's water supply, and/or drinking fountains rather than buckets being filled as was the case initially?” we asked.

Drysdale wrote back:  “Drinking water (including bottled water and water dispensers) is currently available on site. Construction starting at the Campus has allowed for a temporary refillable water station with plumbed water to be installed – we anticipate this to be ready the beginning of August. The new buildings will include several different refillable water stations.”

We will check back in August to find out if this water improvement is in effect.  

Drysdale said there is already guest Wi-Fi available that people can access. She also wrote the campus is ADA compliant for all services available, including for people in wheelchairs and walkers. “Both Case Management and Behavioral Health services are available to all participants,” she wrote.

“Are there available clothes at campus for people to change into if they have accidents?” was another question from the community we relayed to her. “The Campus has spare clothing on site,” Drysdale wrote. “However, if clothing is not available for any reason such as size, staff will coordinate with Catholic Charities to assist.

As far as questions on success rates for people going from the campus to housing in the past year, Drysdale sent the above graphics.

Amid concerns for those who are temporarily excluded or “86’d”, Drysdale said they can still access their mail.  “Does the County find that expelling people for a few days or longer is effective?” we also asked?

“Sit-outs are designed around best practices and are established for the safety and wellbeing of everyone on Campus,” Drysdale wrote back. “Participants are able to appeal the decision and provide input as to why they should be allowed back earlier than their sit-out time.”

 Concerning food being served at the campus, which has often been criticized in our interviews with people staying at the compound as unhealthy, Drysdale said: “Catholic Charities, a nonprofit organization, through its St. Vincent’s Dining Room, continues to provide both a hot lunch and a hot dinner meal to the Nevada Cares Campus emergency shelter. Since initial concerns of the meals, staff has not heard additional concerns from participants. Additionally, through process improvement measures, Catholic Charities now identifies each meal before serving.”

Would-be volunteers also asked how they could help, or if they can go into the compound and meet with a person.

“We have invited and continue to invite volunteer groups to sign up for volunteer opportunities on our Community Engagement page, on the Washoe County Housing and Homeless services site, under Nevada Cares Campus. If volunteer groups would like to organize a special event on Campus, they are welcomed to select “Other”. Our volunteer coordinator reaches out to plan and organize special events. To sign up, please visit this page, here,” she wrote. 

Do you feel some of your questions were answered? Do you have any more? As always, let us know. We are trying to foster more transparency, empathy and progress in how this community helps the unhoused, including at the still very much work in progress Cares Campus.

Our Town Reno report, July 2022

Zoe Bray, Fostering Eco-Art, Reuse and Reaching Back to Her Basque Heritage in Reno

On a recent summer day in the oasis of Katie’s Community garden on the Bridge Church compound, a group of kids and their moms worked on the finishing touches of their “eco-art,” blending different nature parts they collected into plate-sized collages.

Zoe Bray, an established portrait artist, anthropologist and journalist, and soon to be published children’s book author, gently guided along the process. She showed participants how to make glue from a flower, water and a bit of sugar.  If she had more time, she said, she could have collected resin from trees to skip the sugar and go “completely natural.” 

“You don't need all this artificial stuff, but you have the most amazing nature around you and get yourself familiarized with that, and learn to care about your environment in the process. And so I think that's empowering to both children and adults and very freeing too,” Bray said of the eco-art experience.

A few days earlier, Bray had a similar calm demeanor, coordinating free drawing and painting lessons at the Riverside Farmers’ Market, while her own two kids played nearby.

“I think it’s exciting and empowering to be involved in what's going on around you,” she told Our Town Reno this week from her tree-filled backyard, not far from the Truckee River.  “Art is a wonderful way of getting people to connect with each other and their environment, and also to provide a kind of relaxing and meditative moment. And I think this is particularly important, in the kind of fast-paced, media saturated world we live in just to have this opportunity to work in peace and to be able to share this experience with others.”

Bray, a Franco-British artist, currently enjoying her second stay in Reno, says she’s looking for more grants to hold similar workshops.  In June, she used a Creative Aging grant from the Nevada Arts Council to teach drawing and painting still-lives at Revel Rancharrah. 

Previously, she’s held workshops in museums, to break the intimidation factor of such settings. 

“If you haven't been immersed in that growing up, you don't quite know how to engage with it or look at it, or, you know, it might sound like a very elitist thing, art, but no, just make it approachable, accessible and get people involved and engaged,” she says of her engagement method.

Bray first came to Reno over ten years ago as an Assistant Professor at UNR with the Center for Basque Studies, linking the arts and anthropology departments. She then became a visiting professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, before returning to the Biggest Little City. 

“Reno really does provide an extraordinary quality of life,” Bray said of her return. “For me, this easy access to nature, to the wilderness is just so important, really valuable. And we are so fortunate to be able to have that here. I can just take my bike and in 10 minutes I can be further up the river, swim in the Truckee River. I can go for a hike and just, you know, completely disconnect from the stresses of urban life and just refuel myself and my soul. And that's just incomparable. It's just something that's just invaluable.” 

 She also appreciates local Basque connections, which she is herself on her mother’s side, and which has guided part of her artistic work with a series of portraits on Basque-Americans and her research in anthropology on Basque identity.

 “My mother's grandfather was one of these immigrants from the French side of the Basque country. So this was in the early 19 hundreds, when the Basque country in France was one of these pretty poor regions, he had the opportunity to come to the American west,” Bray said of her heritage. “And at the time, the opportunity for Basque people then was to find employment as a sheepherder. So he was one of these that came to Nevada. He was somewhere between Eureka and Ely. And then he actually came back to the Basque country and settled back home. So he kind of paved the way for me to then come here in a very different and more privileged situation.” 

“As a portrait painter, I paint in this kind of traditional way using oil paints that I make myself if possible in my own canvas. And I, I look for a long time at nature. So I ask people to pose for me for several, several hours, several days, so that I really can get to know them properly and also really observe them. And it's really on the basis of light, how light falls on your face,” Bray said, when asked about her series of portraits of Basque-Americans.

Bray also writes about local Basques for different media publications, including the French Basque newspaper Mediabask which recently ran her article about how the Great Basin Community Food Coop was founded by two grand-daughters of a sheepherder emigrated from a village close to hers.

A new children’s book she illustrated and wrote called Amatxi is about a girl who discovers strange sounds by the Truckee River with her Basque grandmother. Bray will be doing an artist’s residency in the Basque County in the fall and working on a second part to the book.  She’s also been working on a  series of illustrations of children interacting with the world around them, from making their own compost to climbing trees, and running free, much like her own kids often do here, where Bray will return. 

Another project she’s pursuing is trying to get eco-art incorporated into local school curriculums.

“It’s even more urgent in really urban settings where some children just have never been anywhere, but a small city park. Every school should be able to have some kind of garden, some natural setting where they can just hang out, that's not always just tarmac and metal and cement,” Bray said. 

Bray cofounded Reusable Reno with Lakshmi Albright to get local businesses “to make the shift from single-use foodware to reusable foodware, in order to address the serious problem of trash and microplastics increasingly present in our watershed and environment in general. My work giving lessons in eco-art is connected to my activism with Reusable Reno, showing people how you can easily make this beneficial transition from a single-use and disposable lifestyle to a more sustainable - and economical - one by going 'reuse' with so many simple acts (like making glue from organic things rather than buying glue in a plastic bottle!),” Bray wrote to us in an email after our interview.

In Reno, in addition to trying to help limit trash (see above), she’s also worried about expanding sprawl and the lack of accessible housing.  “If you don't have a certain income level, just to be able to go anywhere, to be able to, to live with basic standards is really challenging. So he city has come to this point where it really needs to work this out and give [opportunities] to people of lower income without having to cover huge distances to go to work or to do anything. And this for the sake of equity, but also for the sake of the amazing nature that we have around us. We're lucky to have so much public land and this needs to be preserved. We can't be solely crawling up the mountains and now to the desert, just so that we can have our comfortable house with a front yard and a backyard. We need to rethink that for the good of everybody.”

Being an artist here can be challenging, though, whatever its rewards. “It’s not going to make you comfortable or rich,” she concluded. “So that's why it's important to have something else going on the side.” 

Our Town Reno reporting, July 2022

The NNLC, Breaking the Cycle of Poverty with Reading and High School Diplomas

The Northern Nevada Literacy Council is a non-profit organization aiming to help raise literacy rates in Nevada, which also offers free access to a program that helps adults get their high-school equivalency, regardless of how much education they already have.

“I say it's never too late,” Adrienne Santiago, Executive Director of the NNLC, said.  “I say come on in to come talk to us, let us get your assessments done. You may only be here for a month and have a high school equivalency. You could be that close, and it might take a little bit longer, but even if it does, we'll work around your schedule. We will help you with all the barriers that are preventing you from doing this.”

The NNLC offers this class and a few other different types of courses to their 500 students. These programs range from an eight-week course giving students a rundown to get their United States citizenship, classes helping adults receive their high school equivalency, a family reading program and a career development program for young professionals. 

The professional development program represents an option for young students who, for one reason or another, can’t finish their high school programming.

NNLC works with other organizations like the Eddy House, another non-profit working with unhoused youth, to reach out to students. To help students get into the long-term career they want, NNLC helps students create a long-term career plan. They assist the student in reaching those goals on the education front by reimbursing them for equipment or tuition. In some cases, NNLC will even reimburse a student’s employer for wages to help the program’s participants land a first job.

Just like the program for getting adults their high school equivalency, it’s free of charge, and students are given a pretest to determine their education level before they enter the program.

“Even if a youth has a high school equivalency or high school diploma, we still do that assessment,” Santiago said.  “We don't want to put them into a training program at TMCC or anywhere if we know that their reading level is not to where it needs to be, because then it'll just be one more knock on them to say I can't do this.”

Since the NNLC doesn’t charge for their services, the only requirement to enroll in any class is to be over 16 years of age. Santiago said she believes that higher literacy is better for everyone in the community, from better career outcomes for students and potential employers. Even something as simple as handing out a manual to an employee becomes easier with a more literate community.

“There's so many people lacking high school equivalency, and it's not something that a community can be proud of,” Santiago said.  “ I believe really strongly that as communities work together, we need to work together to address these issues. I really think that it affects so many people. ”

In Nevada, a state that was recently ranked 49th in education, NNLC sees literacy and all of their community members as a way for community members to move into new career paths and get a better life for themselves and their children. Even if an adult isn’t interested in getting a high school equivalency, the non-profit’s reading program offers an opportunity for parents to get their kids involved in reading. 

“Why do we always have to be last?” Santiago said. “Why is literacy not at the top of the most important things? It is the foundation for everything. It is a foundation to break the cycle of poverty. It's the foundation of entering into training, furthering your education. It's a foundation for their children.”

NNLC is currently looking for more instructors for their adult learners. Santiago said their current team was dedicated to the job, and good instructors will find joy in helping an adult, young or old, reach their dreams. 

“We’re always looking for teachers and if anyone is interested in working with adult learners, we'd love to talk to them,” Santiago said. “I just think that everyone needs to just know that NNLC is here as an option, especially for our youth and helping our youth break that cycle and have options.”

Our Town Reno reporting by Jesse Stone

James and Jennifer- Living Rough Together in Reno

Smiling, Jennifer gets off her bike that is pulling an overpacked trailer filled with the necessities of her life. She goes over to the bench along the Reno Riverwalk where her partner, James, is sitting next to his own overloaded bike and trailer. She hands him a cup filled with soda she has gotten from a nearby fast-food restaurant for free after asking a manager.

James and Jennifer have been together on the streets in Reno for 14 months, or, as Jennifer laughs, “in street time that’s like 300 years. When you live inside you go to your jobs, you might see each other an hour or two a day. We’re with each other 24 hours a day.”

James got out of prison two years ago and met Jennifer, who moved here from California, fourteen months ago. They have been inseparable ever since, preferring to live in the rough outside rather than in a tent or shelter.

“I worked with the Red Cross in New York after 9/11, driving workers around, helping feed first responders. I’ve had hard jobs, I’m a good worker, " James says emphatically.

“Then I went to prison. And I will never contribute to America again. I think of my life out here on the streets as a living protest. I was kept as a slave in prison. I worked all sorts of jobs, got paid next to nothing. I even worked out there on the wild horse ranch, since I had experience in ranch work. I saw a lot of abuse there- of prisoners and horses. And think of all those prisoners who work on the fire crews, they get paid so little guarding our lives. When I left prison after all those years they gave me 38 dollars.”

He continues, obviously impassioned. “You know the Thirteenth Amendment? It bans slavery, except for prisoners. Maybe if you have an amendment against slavery there shouldn’t be a caveat to enslave prisoners.”

Jennifer opens her bright daisy printed bag to show the blister packs of Narcan that they always carry with them for emergencies. James tells of the time he used CPR for five minutes on someone who had overdosed on Fentanyl. “I learned it in the Red Cross. We’ve brought more than one person back to life with this,” he says, pointing into the bag of nasal sprays.

Jennifer gives him a hug as he continues. “Theoretically, the homeless shelter is a good idea, but you have to remember that a lot of the people on the streets have been to the penitentiary or jail. So, they get out and maybe were in a gang- I wasn’t, I was just an old guy, and you go in the shelter and it looks the same. Putting all the people in one place will never work. It’s violence waiting to happen.”

When asked about the possibility of living in one of the pods that Washoe County also has for the unhoused at the Cares Campus, he says he likes living outside and that small spaces and dormitories bring back too many memories of prison.

Jennifer, who, like James, is 43, says she tries to take care of “her guy” and others on the street, too. She is a mother figure to many of those who she checks on daily. Both of them identify themselves as “bad alcoholics” and the only other drug they use now is a little marijuana.

“We could die from withdrawal, “says James. Jennifer often finds herself alone in the middle of the night going to find alcohol. “I was chased by a guy outside of the liquor store at two the other morning,” she says with a small quaver. “The guys are gross out here when you are by yourself. Men all think I’m a prostitute and I am not.”

James says he would really like to go to medical detox to try and get off alcohol, but he worries about leaving his bike and his trailer with just Jennifer watching them. He has used drugs in the past, but both say the big drug on the street in Reno now is Fentanyl, which they both hate.

Living without a tent is not easy, but they both prefer it. “As soon as you have a tent up the cops can get you for camping,” James explains. This was Jennifer’s first winter sleeping rough and she has grown to like it. She does wish there was a place to take a shower and misses some of the razed motels where friends who could offer her one used to live.

There are local businesses where they can wash up and use toilets, and when they can’t find one, they both insist they would never use the sidewalk as they have sometimes seen others do. “The outside is our home,” Jennifer says. “Honestly, we save pizza boxes and bags to poop in if we have to, then throw it in the trash.”

They have a routine for food and there is a constant search to find money for the alcohol they need. "Tuesdays and Saturdays the hippies feed us. Thursdays it’s the church. Sundays we sometimes find the burrito people. We can get our EBT [Electronic Benefits Transfer (EBT) is an electronic system that allows a Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) participant to pay for food using SNAP benefits] refilled at the welfare office.”

James says that the best outreach in Reno is the VA. “I’m not a vet, but say there’s just one vet in a group- they help everyone. Those guys get it.”

Jennifer again leans into James’s neck. “We try to take care of each other and love each other. That’s all we can really do, right? “

Reporting and photos by Dina Wood shared with Our Town Reno

The Last Motels Standing in Reno: Sutro Motel

Sweltering heat and fried leaves aren't new to Reno. But I can't help but notice it's getting worse. 

I tried to take a quick walk to the motel. Take some photos, talk to people. But the heat was too much for me. I had to turn around. 

Equipped with water bottles and my camera I stepped out into the heat once more. I thought about taking pictures of people who managed to stand the heat. 

But no one was there. My only company solitary pigeons whizzing by in the non-refreshing breeze. Occasionally a head would pop out a door as I took photos in the nearly empty lots facing one another. No hellos. 

Weekly welcome, senior citizens, local motels’ bread and butter. The motels are disappearing though.

I can't help but wonder. Maybe the absence of people says as much as their presence does. 

Photos and Essay by Ariel Smith for Our Town Reno

The Last Motels Standing in Reno: Swan Inn

This is part of a series of essays with photos on the last motels still standing in Reno. We previously had a series on the last motel residents of Reno. Motels, initially conceived for tourists, increasingly became a last housing option for many, due to bad credit, not enough money for deposits, or not wanting to deal with a multitude of bills and complications, or a first housing option for residents coming out of homelessness. Many motels are now being torn down, after being bought out and razed by slow to act developers, with many vacant lots now dotting the downtown landscape.

i took myself out this time 

i said too much when i shouldn’t have 

you make it easier for me to experience things 

i met the housekeeper, Donna, when i was taking these pictures

she was a nice woman

she gave me a hard time for having a camera, but not in a hostile way 

saying “you look a little too old to be at UNR” and “your wallet looks a little too clean to be keeping it in your front pocket,” then followed that up with a laugh and explaining she was kidding

i offered to show my student id, but she didn’t seem to mind me there

i love the swan logo of this place

i can wait it out

it felt nice to go out and shoot photos again, especially in a new environment like this motel 

it has been awhile since i have 

the metal flowers below the front stairwell gave me a smile

they were cute in their own endearing sort of way

i don’t know how much longer this motel will last

online it said it was closed, but as i arrived there were a few guests i could hear 

a man muttering to himself and smoking a cigarette on the second floor, eyeballing me as i walked around 

a younger kid blasting music from his room with the door wide open towards the back 

it was a good song 

donna told me to be careful around the area

i appreciated that 

i hope good things come her way 

Photos and Essay by Jake Lorge for Our Town Reno

ACCEPT Reno Has a Long History in Helping HIV+ Community Members

The Access for Community and Cultural Education Programs & Trainings (ACCEPT) is a non-profit organization in Northern Nevada providing health education and services for clients with HIV.

Founded after the tragic death of two men due to AIDS, the group has been serving the Northern Nevada area for nearly thirty years.

“In the early nineties, there were two young men that died from HIV and AIDS that were going to our church,” Executive Director of ACCEPT Gwen Taylor explained. “No one wanted to tell my husband that they died. Those two guys died. Young men died of AIDS without their pastor going to visit them. My husband just became very aggravated with the ignorance.”

After the men passed away, Taylor and her husband started visiting barber shops, beauty shops and churches to provide health education on HIV. Four years later, in 1999, the group officially formed a non-profit, creating the organization that still exists to this day.

After a few years as the African American Cultural Education Programs & Trainings, the nonprofit’s name was changed slightly to become Access for Community and Cultural Education Programs & Trainings. The name was altered to reflect that the group’s services are available to anyone who falls underneath a certain maximum income, that income being about four hundred percent of the federal poverty level, or about $50,000 for a single person.

“We started with the African American community because we were the most severely infected and we still are the most severely infected,” Taylor said. “We do target African Americans. We target minorities, we target low-income people, but as long as they meet those poverty guidelines, we will help any race.”

ACCEPT provides its clients with health education and acts as a provider of non-medical case management. This means that the help ACCEPT provides their clients has to fall outside of medical care, but has a wide variety, from providing housing referrals to transportation credits, or helping older clients navigate technology.

Another key distinction of non-medical case management for ACCEPT is that appointments aren’t limited to a certain time. For agencies or hospitals which are supplying medical care, this isn’t always the case. The willingness to provide clients with customized care, and to spend time with them based on their needs means clients form a close relationship with the agency. Taylor said she feels like a mother to some of her clients.

 “They feel like they are a human being,” Taylor said. “They don't feel like they're just being shipped in and shipped out. They feel like we care. And, sometimes, we're the only family those clients have.”

Throughout the decades, stigma against people diagnosed with HIV and misconceptions surrounding the disease has persisted. Many of ACCEPT’s clients don’t want their families to know they have been diagnosed with the disease.

When a client puts down an emergency number, ACCEPT asks if the contact is aware of the client’s HIV status. There are no signs outside the building ACCEPT is housed in, and there is little indication whatsoever that there is an agency inside focusing on providing services for people diagnosed with HIV until you’ve already walked into the office and encountered the many brochures in English and Spanish lining the walls.

“We have a lot of work to do within our community, especially with the churches and especially with family members,” Taylor said.

Our Town Reno reporting by Jesse Stone

A Powerful Trio Leading the Charge of Nightly Reno Summer Protests

Hecklers or no hecklers, drivers trying to be intimidating or honking in support, new protesters not sure what to do, and others immediately emboldened to speak up, regulars with the same signs or revolving ones, Evann, Cecilia and Kaydi, three twentysomethings who have been organizing nightly protests at the Federal Courthouse building in downtown Reno, have experienced a wide range of experiences and emotions since Roe v Wade was overturned. 

“We need to be a presence every single day,” Cecilia explained of their nightly 7 p.m. protest tactic. “We need to be out there showing people we're not going anywhere. This is a problem. This needs to be addressed. This is an issue. And if we're not out there every single day, looking these people in the eye and reminding them that something is wrong, they forget the fact that just because Nevada is protected for now does not mean that we always will be. It does not mean that everybody else is. I want people to finally show some empathy for other people, be a human being for once, band with fellow human beings. Stand together on this. This is our freedom. This is not about abortion. This is about freedom. This is about human rights. This is about your children's future and you are failing us. You are failing your children.”

All three have been ramping up their social media presence, activity and output to make more people aware. They also spend hours online responding to comments, educating others and inspiring more people to join them.   

“Even if there's only three of us or two of us, you know, people drive by and they see that we're there, that we care and that we're real,” Evann said of her dual role of posting pictures on Instagram and also going to as many of the nightly protests as she can. “And that they'll remember that next time and hopefully they remember next time when they vote or when they decide to make a decision that affects not only them, but women and LGBTQ+ people and people of color and immigrants, everyone in this country.” 

A new Facebook group the trio just started after a request from older would be protesters.

In Person and Online

Dealing with toxic people online and in real life does not faze her. “Honestly, it kind of just fuels my fire more,” Evann said. “The more I get yelled at, the more people flip me off and tell me that I'm stupid or I don't know what I'm talking about or that I shouldn't have this freedom, you know, it just, it makes me more mad and it gives me more fuel to keep pushing, to keep fighting this fight because that means that nothing's going to change. I need to physically be a part of it. And that just motivates me way more in order to keep pushing, keep fighting because I'm angry. And I know a lot of young people are angry and they don't know what to do with that anger. And I think we need to start pushing it out.”

Kaydi says she’s relieved Nevada Governor Steve Sisolak declared the state a so-called “sanctuary state.”

In a tweet sent out June 28th, the governor wrote: “Today, I signed an Executive Order to strengthen protections for reproductive freedom in Nevada. Reproductive health care is a basic human right -- We are committed to ensuring safe access to abortions for women seeking refuge from the restrictive laws in their state.”

“That was absolutely amazing,” Kaydi said. “I feel like it's super important to remind people that that's very much temporary, depending on what happens in November. And so we need to keep going out there telling people who to support and also reminding people that there's going to be an influx of people coming from out of state into Nevada because we are a sanctuary state and we do have abortion protections. And so we need to keep this awareness up so that we make sure that the state and every municipality in the state makes reproductive health a priority so that both people in the state and out of the state can get care because there are a very limited amount of resources available for reproductive health, such as abortion clinics, contraception …” 

Finding Time after Work

All three work, and still find time for their now nightly ritual.  

Evann, the youngest of the group at 20, is a receptionist for a dermatologist. Kaydi, soon to be 23, is a general warehouse worker, with studies in political science in her background and a paralegal certificate.  

“I wouldn't miss a night for the world even though, yeah, I am somebody who works 10 hours basically every single day of the week, but this is so important to me,” Kaydi said. 

Cecilia, 27, works for a biomedical research facility, which has been involved in vaccine rollouts.  “I would like to note that I absolutely do not believe that people should be forced to take a vaccine,” she said. “We have been compared a lot to people who force people to take vaccines. Again, it is your body, it is your choice. That is what we are chanting. So I do not believe in forcing anybody to do anything that they do not want to do.”

Cecilia takes the responsibility of being the oldest in the organizing group seriously. “I kind of mom everybody, make sure everybody gets home safe. The most amazing thing about coming out here is watching the people who come out for their very first time, their very first protest and they're shy and they're scared and they don't know what to do and they're nervous about it. And we welcome them and we open our arms to them and we give them that megaphone and we tell them to scream about it and let it out and to watch them open up and let these emotions out and feel … like they're humans and like they're being listened to is the most amazing part of what we do.” 

She says people keep asking the group why they protest while abortions are still legal in Nevada.  “Just because it's legal here doesn't mean it will stay legal here,” she reiterated.  “And just because it's legal here does not mean people in other states are safe. People in other states are dying because of this.”

Encouraging Voting and Donations

Cecilia says based on her own experience many men think being on contraceptives is a cakewalk.  “If I had a dollar for every time a man drove by and told me why not just use the pill, I'd be rich. It's not that easy,” she explained. “There are lots of different complications that can come with the different birth controls that women have to take. And it's something that men don't know because they don't have to deal with it. They don't have to deal with getting cancer. They don't have to deal with an IUD ripping through their uterus. They don't have to deal with infertility because of this stuff… It should be everybody's responsibility to preventing pregnancy. It should not fall on the woman.”

Cecilia is dismayed that in some states abortion isn’t allowed for medical exemptions anymore. 

“That would be ectopic pregnancies, miscarriages, and other types of pregnancies which actually risk the life of the mother. That’s the thing with pro-life is they seem to forget the life of the person carrying the baby, who is also at risk. Every time we are trying to carry a child, they seem to forget that pregnancy is dangerous, that women have died. So many women have died just going through the process of being pregnant, giving birth, having a child, let alone the women that are murdered because their boyfriends didn't want them to get pregnant.”

Preventing abortions in the case of rape and incest also leaves her gasping for air. “They want to force us to have the rapist’s baby? In what country does that sound right to people? In what country does it sound okay to force children who have been raped to have a child?”

The three pointed out their support for all the work Planned Parenthood has been doing nationally and locally as well as the efforts of the Wild West Access Fund (WWAF) of Nevada giving financial assistance to those seeking abortion care in the state, coming from within as well as from outside.  

The group encourage donations to these organizations, and registering to vote in November.  In the meantime, they are asking more people to join them 7 p.m. every night at the courthouse between downtown and Midtown.

“I am so proud of all of these kids that come out here every night and I hope that they're all listening and I hope every single one of you knows. I don't care if you are out there for one day 30 minutes, three hours every single day. I am so proud of you. And I love you,” Cecilia said in closing. 

Our Town Reno reporting, July 2022

FARMily, Bringing Educational Urban Gardening to the Center of Reno

Reno is home to many different things. Depending on who you ask, some will point to the downtown casinos, the majestic courthouse, the up and down Truckee River or its many murals. It’s also becoming known for urban gardening, which includes multiplying initiatives by different groups, including Farmily, a local non-profit empowering children with green know how.

The organization operates four urban gardens, with three located right next to Boys and Girls Clubs, where kids at the program are invited to grow plants and food.

“We're teaching kids things like mindfulness and breath work and really how to reconnect with nature,” Rebekah Stetson, founder and CEO of Farmily, said. “The reason why that's our focus is because a lot of the health disparities that we're seeing, whether those are mental health or physical health, directly relate to people not being as in tune with what they're doing to their bodies, with their community. It's just a lack of attachment. We really aim to teach kids those skills because we know, based on research, that those serve us for a lifetime.”

Our Town Reno visited two of the four farm sites, and both were only a few miles from some of the biggest casinos in town. The Reno skyline is clearly visible, and the clutter of tall buildings is at odds with the flowers and recently planted produce at both sites. The Flint Street site is less than a mile from Wingfield Park, surrounded by tall banks and office buildings. It’s not located as close to a Boys and Girls Club as the other sites, but children will still visit on occasional field trips. Volunteers are welcome, and office workers will walk through the small farming space on their lunch breaks. 

“Sharing your experience with people and then also having people share their experience with you is exactly such a cool thing about gardening and agriculture in general,” Philip Nasvik, Assistant Garden Manager and Director of Soil Health at FARMily, said. “People have their strengths and weaknesses in agriculture, just like they have in any other aspect of life . When you can share your knowledge, through the community and the network, that's when you really start to feel that it's something special and meaningful.”

After harvesting the crops and distributing the food to families, FARMily sends excess produce to a few different outreach groups who help distribute food to neighbors in need.

“They love that sense of purpose of planting something, watching it grow and then being able to eat it and share it with their family,” Stetson said of children who take part in the program. “It is really magical. I truly believe that we’re all creators, what we're meant to do is create things. It's such a satisfying experience to tend the land, grow something and then be able to share it with other people. A lot of volunteers come because they love the mission of what we do. They love helping other people, but they also love the zen nature of being in the garden.”

The sites grow more than vegetables and produce. Both sites that Our Town Reno visited grew flowers, to sustain a more complete ecosystem and protect insects and other pollinators. Stetson said the growing process at each site is entirely organic. No herbicides or pesticides are used. No artificial fertilizer is used, and FARMily makes its own compost for growing plants. 

“All of our gardens are organic, but we also use permaculture principles,” Stetson said. “Permaculture is a way of looking at the world as a very interconnected ecosystem. It's important for us to have all sorts of different plants, fruits, vegetables, flowers, annual flowers, perennial flowers because then you have a more diverse ecosystem.”

Setting up a farm in the middle of the city brings with it a few changes compared to a farm on the outside of town. The nearby concrete raises the temperature, and FARMily has to manage its water to align with city guidelines. Nasvik said FARMily chooses plants and crops based on the conditions of Northern Nevada and the urban environment. But the urban farm’s convenient location means that students and other distributors are far closer than usual.

“Some urban farms are fortuitous because they're closer to where a market would be,” Stetson said.  “If you were attending farmer's markets, then you don't have as many miles to logistically [to] get your food, which I guess is also beneficial for us. When we harvest, everyone that we distribute to is within a five mile radius of all of our sites.”

Our Town Reno reporting by Jesse Stone