Central Valley Vintage Baseball, based in Sacramento, has recreated the game as it was played over 100 years ago. Four teams play against each other and vintage teams from other parts of the country, wearing historic uniforms and incorporating the rules of the 1869s. Baseball was an important cultural event, used by early farmers of California’s Central Valley to bring towns together between the spring planting season and fall harvesting. The Schwemm Family Foundation supported the establishment of these vintage teams as a way to bring living history to the community. Play Ball!
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This project aimed to build a community garden for low-income and disabled seniors in Santa Paula, California. With help from the SFF, raised beds were installed and supplies purchased so seniors could participate in planting seeds and tending plants. Volunteers then assisted the residents with planting and helping the new gardeners learn how to tend their young plants.
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The 29-mile long San Lorenzo River runs from the Santa Cruz Mountains through downtown Santa Cruz and ultimately to Monterey Bay. As it goes through the city the river is channelized by flood control levees. But above and below the channels the river provides critical habitat for native plants, birds, and fish such as coho salmon, steelhead trout and tidewater goby. The Coastal Watershed Council works to protect and enhance the natural portions of the river. The Schwemm Family Foundation assisted this organization by supporting River Health Days, a volunteer effort to remove invasive plants, replant impacted sites and improve shoreline habitat.
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The Josephy Center for Arts and Culture in Joseph Oregon, in partnership with the Wallowa History Center, made an appeal to the community to go through their attics and photo albums to uncover lost treasures to help document the county’s history. Local newspapers and the public submitted about 100 historical photos which enabled the Center to host a local art exhibit and accompanying exhibit catalogue, as well as an online catalogue. This initiative insured that many priceless photos were digitized for the future, that would have otherwise been lost or tossed because the portraits or local scenes would have been unidentified and meaningless to future generations. Approximately 2000 people visited the exhibit, including many school groups. The Schwemm Family Foundation funds were used primarily to scan, print and mount approximately 50 photos, each with a corresponding short essay explaining the content and source. Highlights of the exhibit included photos of the Nez Perce tribe, Chief Joseph, Maxville loggers, and early settlers and ranchers.
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Since their inception in 2010, ACCESS Food Share Gardens have contributed over 370,000 pounds of organically grown produce to the ACCESS network of 50 emergency and supplemental food pantries, meal sites and other distribution sites in Jackson County of southern Oregon. With the help of a grant from the Schwemm Family Foundation in 2017, ACCESS was able to develop partnerships with new land hosts in Gold Hill and Rogue River, Oregon after their long-term garden sites in both communities changed ownership last year. ACCESS quickly forged relationships with a church/charter school in Rogue River and Moose Lodge #178 in Gold Hill and were able to develop two new productive garden sites in time for the 2017 growing season.
Read MoreAlong the Willamette River in Oregon, the Friends of Historic Butteville are working to restore Butteville Landing, a site that has connected the town with the river for as long as people have lived here. The project aims to increase public access to the site, improve shoreline conditions, and interpret the history of the Landing. The SFF supported the project by funding interpretive signage that will help visitors understand the important connections between the natural river and human enterprise in both historic and present-day Butteville.
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The Ocean Institute in Dana Point, California engages students in many facets of maritime history and marine ecology. One of the institute’s most unique programs involves the ‘Pilgrim’, a replica of the merchant ship described in Richard Henry Dana’s book Two Years Before the Mast. The story tells the tale of Dana’s adventures in the 1830s as the ship traveled from Boston to California via Cape Horn. Students in 4th grade can participate in a living history adventure aboard the Pilgrim where they learn first-hand the life of a sailor in the 1800s. In support of this program The Schwemm Foundation funded a special printing of Two Years Before the Mast so that it can be made available at low cost to all students.
Read MoreWaterboard Park is a designated heritage tree grove, located in Oregon City, Oregon. Currently, the trees in the park are under attack from invasive English ivy. With help from the Schwemm Family Foundation, the Oregon City Parks Foundation organized volunteers for several ‘ivy-pull’ days that removed ivy that surrounds the base of the trees, allowing new growth of native forest-floor plants and improved tree health. The removal of the ivy will also allow the construction of new trails in the future.
Read MoreTreasure Valley Childrens’ Relief Network (TVCRN) works to improve the diets of at-risk children by teaching parents to grown and prepare healthy food. TVCRN is located in one of the highest-poverty counties in Oregon, and low-income communities are often hindered by a scarcity of available fresh produce. The Schwemm Family Foundation supported a TVCRN project utilizing raised bed gardens to grow vegetables along with a 6-week cooking course. Maintaining healthy eating practices is a challenge, especially for marginalized populations, but with ongoing efforts such as this we hope to improve the health of children currently living in poverty.
Read MoreWildlife Safari, in Winston, Oregon, provides visitors an interactive experience with native and exotic wildlife. The Schwemm Family Foundation supported a project called Raptor Ridge that created a new exhibit that allows more animals to be on display, in this case an American Badger. The exhibit is open to all visitors including those with disabilities, and the badger has a new home.
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