Goals & Needs

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​The Western Shasta RCD Outreach and Engagement Programs focus on bringing our mission to work with willing landowners to preserve and protect the natural resources of western Shasta County to partners and communities throughout our District. Our GrizzlyCorps Fellow will manage and expand upon the District's volunteer programs including our CollegeCorps Volunteer Program, develop social media and website content, coordinate and participate in education and outreach events, and work with our partners to engage local citizens in resource protection. Climate change has significantly accelerated wildfire risk and impacted water resource issues in our District and in order to address these issues, community engagement has never been more important. A GrizzlyCorps Fellow will strengthen the capacity of our District to increase community resilience, expand carbon sequestration opportunities, enhance agricultural capacity, reduce wildfire risk, and increase forest resilience through targeted community education and outreach throughout all District programs. 

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Capacity Building Projects

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The WSRCD was selected to participate in the inaugural year of the California CollegeCorps Program and has co-hosted three volunteers. Our GrizzlyCorps Fellow will continue to manage our participation in the CollegeCorps Program to provide volunteer opportunities to college students from Shasta College in order to expand and enhance the capcity of the WSRCD. The CollegeCorps volunteers will focus on monitoring and maintenance of Conservation Easements and other preserved propterties in order to provide education and outreach to local citizens about the importance of protecting these areas. In addition to managing the CollegeCorps Volunteers, the GrizzlyCorps Fellow will focus on general education and outreach to promote projects and programs throughout the District. This will require developing social media and website content, coordinating and participating in community outreach events, assisting other District staff with project specific outreach, and working with our partners to explore opportunities to partner on education and outreach in schools, to local service groups, and other appropriate groups to promote conservation and protection of natural resources throughout western Shasta County. 

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Organizational & Community Highlights

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The WSRCD is situated in an area that is the recreational hub of Northern California. Surrounded by mountains on three sides with the Sacramento River running right down the middle, the District boasts unparalleled access to endless outdoor recreation opportunities. The District Office is located in between Redding and Anderson and the communities located in our District are dependent on tourism and recreation as well as forestry related industries. District staff is made up of a diverse group of natural resource professionals that have backgrounds in forestry, botany, biology, ecology and other related fields. The District has many projects and programs including fire prevention, forest health, stream restoration, vegetation management including invasive species, pollinator and wildlife habitat and enhancement, environmental compliance, and many more. Current District Staff has decades of experience developing and implementing natural resource conservation and protection projects as well as conducting extensive community outreach and engagement. Redding and the surrounding area has experienced extreme wildfire recently and there is a great deal of learning opportunity about recovery and mitigating the impacts of these events as well as preparing the communities impacted for the possibility of subsequent events. The WSRCD works with many federal, state and local partners to address these issues and this allows Fellows access to all of these partners to learn about the work that they do and network with them in order to explore potential future career opportunities.

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