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!

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.

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.

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.

The California Native Plant Society – CNPS – has been protecting native plant species in California since 1965. Conservation efforts for plants and animals nearly always requires protecting and enhancing habitat, and increasing urbanization is a primary threat to plant habitats in California. In 2018 the Schwemm Foundation assisted CNPS in publishing a special edition of their publication Fremontia that focused on the importance of protecting open space areas near human population centers, sites often referred to as the urban-wildland interface.

Seven species of abalone, large mollusks also known as sea snails, occur in California and along the Pacific coast. White and black abalone are listed as endangered, while pink, pinto, and green abalone are species of conservation concern. Though adult abalone have large shells and are attached to the ocean floor, baby abalone (larvae) are free floating in ocean waters and at high risk from predation and other threats, and few survive to settle and mature.

Project Coyote works to promote co-existence between humans and wild predators. One of Project Coyote’s most successful programs, Ranching with Wildlife, aims to assist ranchers with employing non-lethal means of predator deterrence for livestock protection. A number of scientifically-based and cost-effective methods have proven successful, including the use of trained dogs to protect sheep.

In 2017 The Schwemm Foundation assisted the SBHM with a project to digitize a portion of their collection of glass negatives containing unique images collected in the Santa Barbara region in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

A particular challenge for historians is bringing history to people who might not otherwise feel they have a relationship with the past. The Schwemm Foundation recently partnered with the Shelton McMurhpey Johnson House in Eugene, Oregon to create and display historical posters on utility boxes on busy street corners throughout the region.

The Truckee River watershed drains over 3,000 square miles, and includes pristine but also highly developed lands. Every fall season the Truckee River Watershed Council organizes Truckee River Day, where over 400 volunteers participate in projects that help protect the resources within the watershed.

The California Urban Streams Partnership (CUSP) is an organization of local, regional and statewide groups working together to protect, restore, and steward urban streams and watersheds in California. CUSP advocates for the improvement of wildlife habitat, the return of functioning ecosystems, and the betterment of urban environments and quality of life. The Schwemm Foundation provided funding for two workshops to teach homeowners and city staff in the San Francisco area communities of Richmond and Oakland how to incorporate soil bioengineering to stop streamside erosion, reduce flooding potential and enhance steelhead habitat on urban streams in those cities. The workshops included approximately 40 people and trained several environmental interns. They also recruited members of the Green Collar Corps – a group that exposes disadvantaged community members to environmental careers – to help facilitate the trainings. CUSP was able to leverage the grant from the Schwemm Family Foundation with other funding sources to purchase tools and supplies needed to conduct the workshops. http://www.earthisland.org/cusp/index.html