Greenville Rising: The Sixth Month Mark
By Meg Upton
Happy Anniversary is not quite it, is it? Here we are at the six-month mark. How are we all surviving? Perhaps that’s how we celebrate: six months of hardcore survival.
I’m listening right now to a book on Audible that should not be comforting: Camilla Townsend’s award-winning The Fifth Sun: A New History of the Aztecs. It is the story of the 1500s and relies on histories written by Nauhuatl language writers (and not Spanish missionaries) for their indigenous communities. The conquest we read about in school is far different than the indigenous perspective in this 2019 publication. In the ensuing fights that took decades and not a quick surrender with Montezuma mistaking Hernando Cortez as a god, I am learning much about ourselves. Not the least of which is that in dire conditions people who survive must make pragmatic decisions not based in nostalgia for the past but their people’s ability to adapt going forward in order to survive. It is an uneasy listen for a person like me—25 percent indigenous and equally Spanish, Basque, and Portuguese, but nonetheless I’ve been bravely listening to the brutality of historic scale as I drive through the changing world.
This is what I’m listening to as I drive through Greenville and Indian Falls on my way to work—all my works. For like my ancestors, I have more than one role in order to get by in this world and I am not resting on what my life was pre-fire and trying to get back to it, but forging ahead and doing what I can do now in this moment both for survival and for my family. We would do well to follow the lead of our ancestors to realize that a homeland destroyed does not make us unique as we think it does and to turn our attention away from our own self-pity of circumstance and on to how do we forge ahead and survive in this place laid to waste by fire? How do we keep bitterness at bay? What can we leave to our families now?
Questions without answers. May we dust ourselves off and find peace in forging ahead building a new life though it will look nothing like the old.
Nechachalaniliztli, Greenville! Fight on in Nauhautl.
Housing Workshop
Tomorrow, Feb. 5, in the Greenville Elementary School Cafeteria from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. is a Homeowners Workshop. The workshop will guide homeowners through creating a timeline with the experts from federal, state, and county agencies. There will also be experts in finance, insurance, and design on hand. For more information contact Sue Weber at [email protected] or (530) 258-6634. Homeowners need to RSVP as lunch will be served.
BBQ and Gas
California Fire Survivor Attorneys is sponsoring a Community BBQ and Free gas giveaway on Sunday, Feb. 6, 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. at Nellz Towne Pump in downtown Greenville. “All Dixie Families Welcome.”
Resource Center Update
The Rebuilding Greenville Resource Center (RGRC) received 64 cords of dry, seasoned almond wood through Jack Montgomery and Lake Almanor Community Church (LACC) from a grant they received from The Almanor Foundation. Supervisor Goss suggested debris removal trucks bring the wood to Indian Valley. Jack Montgomery of LACC arranged for the trucks to pick up the wood from Chico’s Old Durham Wood Company that removes orchards in the Sacramento Valley.
J&C Enterprises and the Sierra Institute have joined forces in this firewood project as well. J&C Enterprises provided space for the wood to be stored. The Sierra Institute and the non-profit SAYLove are purchasing firewood from J&C to mix with the orchard wood.
Dixie Fire survivors who have less than one cord of wood or gas to last less than one month’s worth of wood can fill out an emergency heating assistance application at RGRC. Those who cannot make it in to the center in Crescent Mills may call or text Penney Robbins at (530) 282-7000 to fill out an application over the phone or online.
Case management services continue to be available to survivors via phone. This can include assistance with immediate needs and with navigating the resources available in the short-term. In the long-term, these services include assistance with putting together a plan of action to get re-established, including assistance to apply for financial support from the Dixie Fire Collaborative. For case management support, contact Nancy Presser at (530) 283-2735 x832 or Irshad Stolden at (530) 283-2735 x831.
For all other unmet needs, donations, and questions about RGRC, contact Coordinator Lara Wheeler via text (preferred method of communication) at (530) 778-4309, or phone at (530) 283-2735, x833, or fax at (530) 778-4309.
Tax-deductible donations to directly support the RCRG’s services can be made through Plumas Rural Services, which provides RGRC with fiscal and administrative support: https://form.jotform.com/213464470431046. An updated list of emergency hardware, household goods and foods needed is maintained on the RGRC’s facebook page pinned under ‘featured posts’ and at www.plumasruralservices.org/Disaster-Resource-Management-Services.
Real time updates for RGRC hours, location, and other critical information can be found on the RGRC facebook page pinned under Featured posts.
Dixie Fire Stories Project
If you haven’t had the opportunity to read Levi Mullen’s story on Joanne Burgueno and Sara Gray’s Dixie Fire Stories Project on facebook, it’s definitely worth the time. All the stories are but this newest one gives a play by play we haven’t heard before.
Donations
Sierra Institute reports that their fundraising campaign (they had a matching donation of $100,000 if they reached $100,000) reached $201,681.
More Firewood News
Greenville Southern Baptist Church in Greenville has (almond) firewood again while supplies last. They also stated on their webpage that PGE will be cutting up rounds of pine.
Sawmill
J&C Enterprises reports progress that will lead them “to be fully online” in April. There are many parts still on back order (supply chain issues), but they are “getting warmed up by cutting boards with the circular saw.”
Real Estate
Congratulations to Indian Head Properties as they add Indian Valley resident Treva Malat to their roster of real estate agents.
If you have anything to report going on in Indian Valley that you’d like include in the Greenville Rising column, please email [email protected] and I’ll include it in the following week.
