July 8, 2021
Truckee is a tight-knit, caring community. The ways in which we help one another are endless and something you may not see in a larger, urban area. Because we know each other. We may initially meet at work, by volunteering, or engaging in a town project but we then see those same people at the gym, at events like Truckee Thursdays, or our kid’s soccer game. We know the leaders in the community on a first-name basis because they are our friends and neighbors. We might engage in conversation with strangers in the line at the grocery store. We wave.
We care and give back to our many nonprofits that provide essential services and are doing good things in the community, such as the infamous Bingo Night put on by Sierra Senior Services. The Community Recreation Center is packed with people, daubers in hand, ready to have fun, laugh and yell B-I-N-G-O while raising money for our seniors. The Rotary Club of Truckee helps keep our seniors stay warm in the winter by cutting and delivering firewood in the fall.
We care about our community and hundreds of volunteers turn out the first Saturday in June for Truckee Day, a community-wide clean-up. They show their community pride and walk through our neighborhoods picking up trash. And the block party barbeque at the Regional Park afterward where we get another chance to talk with friends is the icing on the cake. It all began when then Town Council member Maia Schneider was walking her neighborhood after the snow melted and saw how much trash there was and decided to rally the community to get out there and clean up the streets. And they did. Since its inception in 2003, an average of 7 tons of trash is collected annually.
Nonprofits are abundant in Truckee. Such as the Tahoe Food Hub. They connect regional farmers to markets to help provide fair, sustainably grown food for all. One of their areas of focus is their Giving Box program. Thanks to generous donations from the community, they are able to provide a weekly Giving Box filled with fresh, local produce to those facing food insecurity in our area. We love this photo of founder/director Susie Sutphin — she’s is 100% committed to this cause, beginning her research on our food system in 2008, which led to the creation of the Tahoe Food Hub. She is always a ray of positivity.
We know our business owners because they are our friends and neighbors. When someone is in need, such as when a business owner’s daughter was fighting cancer, the GoFundMe page and fundraisers happened instantly. Or when a community member needed an organ transplant, through months of word of mouth a donor was finally found—right here in our community.
