Tahoe Fund

What runs deeper than Lake Tahoe? Our desire to preserve it.

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PUBLIC WORKSHOPS SCHEDULED FOR NEW LAKE TAHOE DESTINATION STEWARDSHIP PLAN

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Lake Tahoe residents, community members and stakeholders interested in the responsible management of tourism and recreation are invited to take part in workshops this month to create a destination stewardship plan that will balance the needs of Lake Tahoe’s environment, businesses, visitors, and local communities. This new shared strategy will inspire all to take care of Tahoe.

A collaboration of 13 public and private sector organizations invite residents and stakeholders in the greater Tahoe region, including Truckee, Calif., to weigh in during a series of visioning workshops scheduled for May 2022.

Residents and stakeholders are invited to participate in the visioning workshops on May 16, 17, and 18 in locations around the Tahoe Basin, plus an option for Zoom.

Experts in the field of destination stewardship, including the Center for Responsible Travel (CREST), and the Travel Foundation, are helping guide the process to create a shared vision and decision-making framework for sustainable management of tourism and recreation throughout the Lake Tahoe region. Additionally, the team includes South Lake Tahoe-based research firm SMG Consulting and Civitas Advisors specializing in sustainable funding solutions.

“The way people access and rely on public lands is changing. In everything from hiking to skiing we are welcoming new and more diverse users, sometimes in growing numbers.” said Erick Walker, Forest Supervisor, USDA Forest Service Lake Tahoe Basin Management Unit. “Now is the time for us to come together to learn how we can better coordinate and improve the whole picture.”

A core team is leading the project from federal, state, county, tribal, and local governmental organizations, as well as businesses, nonprofits, and all four destination organizations that market and manage Lake Tahoe area tourism.

“This unprecedented collaboration with land managers, visitors authorities and the local community is exactly what we need right now,” said Tahoe Fund CEO and core team representative Amy Berry. “Together, we will work to develop a plan that will improve the quality of the Tahoe experience for everybody while also taking care of our extraordinary environment.”

To ensure the plan supports a shared vision for future tourism and recreation, it will draw inspiration from extensive local engagement, including two rounds of public workshops, one-on-one interviews, and focus group meetings with stakeholders including the Washoe Tribe of Nevada and California.

The first round of workshops invites participants to identify opportunities for increasing the direct benefits of tourism and recreation, while addressing the challenges, and creating the plan’s vision and mission statements as well as key goals.

Following are the dates, locations, and times of five in-person events:

  • May 16 – North Tahoe Event Center, Kings Beach, CA – 5:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m.
    Truckee citizens are invited to Kings Beach, Incline Village, and Virtual Zoom workshops
  • May 17 – Parasol Community Foundation, Incline Village, NV – 5:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m.
  • May 18 – Lake Tahoe Community College, South Lake Tahoe, CA – 11:30 a.m to 1:30 p.m.
  • May 18 – Lake Tahoe Visitors Authority Office, South Shore/Stateline – 6:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m.
  • Virtual Zoom Workshop – date to-be-determined

A fifth virtual workshop will be scheduled following the May workshops. All are invited to register for a workshop, learn more about the planning process, and sign up to receive news about the project, results from workshops, and additional opportunities for feedback at StewardshipTahoe.org.

TAHOE FUND & CLEAN UP THE LAKE INVITE PUBLIC TO VOTE ON NEW SCULPTURE DESIGN MADE FROM LITTER REMOVED BY SCUBA DIVERS

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Voters have until May 20 to select a fox, trout or bald eagle for the permanent art installation at the new Tahoe South Events Center

Following the unprecedented year-long scuba clean-up of Lake Tahoe by Clean Up The Lake, the Tahoe Fund with support from Tahoe Blue Vodka, commissioned artists to create a sculpture using some of the recovered items from the Lake. “Surfaced,” a permanent art installation, will be featured at the new Tahoe South Events Center to educate visitors about what lies beneath Tahoe’s blue waters. Today, the nonprofits are launching a contest inviting the public to vote on the endangered animal form the sculpture will take: a Sierra Nevada Red Fox, Lahontan Cutthroat Trout or Bald Eagle holding a Lahontan Cutthroat Trout. Votes can be cast online until May 20.

Voters have until May 20 to select a fox, trout or bald eagle for the permanent art installation at the new Tahoe South Events Center

“Clean Up The Lake’s incredible effort to surface trash around all 72-miles of Lake Tahoe is nearing completion and the team has already removed over 21,000 pounds of trash,” said Amy Berry, Tahoe Fund CEO. “By creating a permanent art sculpture at this wonderful location with some of what was recovered from the lake, our hope is that it will inspire greater environmental stewardship and remind those who love Lake Tahoe that it’s up to all of us to take care of it.”

“Our team has been hard at work beneath the surface of Lake Tahoe for the past year,” said Colin West, founder of nonprofit Clean Up The Lake. “We are thankful to have such a wonderful location to see our work turn into a beautiful piece of art that will further our efforts to improve the environment.”

Known for creating beautiful art from recycled and reclaimed materials, the sculpture will be made by internationally recognized artists Joel Dean Stockdill and Yustina Salnikova by Building 180. One of their best known sculptures is “Ethyl,” an 82-foot life-size whale made from 5,000 pounds of hand recycled trash that was commissioned by the Monterey Bay Aquarium and Hub Strategy & Communication for a campaign about plastic pollution and ocean conservation.

In 2020, Clean Up The Lake partnered with the Tahoe Fund to raise the funds necessary for the first-ever 72-mile scuba clean-up of Lake Tahoe. Thanks to a matching $100,000 donation from Tahoe Blue Vodka, $25,000 from Vail Resorts, more than 135 Tahoe Fund donors, NDSL’s Lake Tahoe License Plate Program and other grant giving agencies, the dive team started the clean-up on May 14, 2021. Their effort is expected to be completed on May 10, 2022.

The new Tahoe South Events Center, scheduled for opening in early 2023, will feature two levels: an event floor, suites, conference and meeting room level, as well as an event lawn area. Seating for up to 6,000 will be available for concerts, performing arts, trade shows, and sporting exhibitions along with a seasonal micro-transit system. It is expected to host up to 130 events a year with opportunities to expand visitation into shoulder seasons and mid-week periods. The anticipated economic impact to the entire community is estimated at $40-60 million per year. When completed the center will employ around 15 full-time staff members and between 200 to 300 part-time staff to run the events. 

To vote on the sculpture design, visit https://tahoesouth.com/surfaced-art/.

Let’s Build a Community Park

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Kids need parks. They need safe, fun, and creative places to explore. And yet, according to the Trust for Public Land, nearly 28 million kids don’t have a park within a 10-minute walk of home.  

In the Ski Run neighborhood of South Lake Tahoe, these aren’t just statistics, they are the lived experience of more than 4,000 residents, 55 percent of whom are Hispanic/Latino. There are over a thousand kids in the neighborhood with zero park access within a half mile of their homes.

Recognizing the need for a gathering place in the neighborhood, Wynn and Lauren Ruji, Lincoln and Galena Else, Chris and Viktoria McNamara, and Corey and Marina Rich came together under the banner of the non-profit Friends of Ski Run to purchase a 0.57-acre empty lot, with the dream of transforming it into a community park.

The lot was once home to the Slalom Inn, which was demolished in 1999 despite sitting in the center of one of South Lake Tahoe’s most crowded neighborhoods. Since then, the lot has sat vacant and served as an unofficial playfield for the neighborhood.

From the start, Friends of Ski Run worked to bring a new approach to park design by giving the biggest voice to the smallest park-goers. Thirty-five kids from Bijou Elementary and the Boys and Girls Club drew sketches of how they envisioned the park, and elements from those drawings were incorporated into the park design. Landscape architect Ben Fish and Sierra Sustainable Builders are turning the kids’ vision into reality.

35 kids from Bijou Elementary and the Boys and Girls Club submitted sketches of the park design

Local partners like SOS Outreach, Barton Health, Heavenly, and League to Save Lake Tahoe are supporting the park by creating historical and environmental education signage, offering bilingual education workshops on exercise, health, and nutrition, and organizing neighborhood clean ups.

There’s still a chance for you to be part of this community effort. Give today to help us build Ski Run Community Park and pave the path for more community parks in Tahoe.

Happy New Year from the Tahoe Fund!

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Photo: Abe Blair | Alpenglow Gallery 

As 2021 draws to a close, we want to send out a big thank you to all our supporters. Because of you, we are able to continue to improve the Lake Tahoe environment for all to enjoy.

Some highlights of what you made possible in 2021: 

  • We helped provide opportunities for underserved youth to experience the outdoors while preparing them for life’s challenges in the SOS Outreach mentorship program.
  • We exceeded our fundraising goal to send campers from Camp Wamp, a camp for children with disabilities, on field trips to the East Shore Trail.

Thank you for showing us the true power of philanthropy. With your help, we can accomplish even more in 2022. Cheers to a happy, healthy, and productive new year! 

Tahoe Fund Partners with Raley’s to Launch A New Way to Donate with Photos

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Partnership with PixlBank’s new I Love Tahoe campaign will support efforts to lessen the impacts of plastics in Tahoe

The Tahoe Fund and Raley’s have partnered with the social good platform PixlBank to launch a unique social campaign designed to promote responsible tourism and inspire residents and visitors to reduce plastics in Lake Tahoe. 

The campaign focuses on the “Drink Tahoe Tap” message and is part of a larger initiative called I Love Tahoe. 

In stores or online, people will be directed to the Drink Tahoe Tap campaign page on the I Love Tahoe website where they can upload a photo of themselves drinking Tahoe Tap water – some of the purest water in the nation. They can then share their photo directly to their social media pages to unlock a $10 donation from Raley’s that will go towards installing water refill stations to help reduce plastic water bottle waste in Tahoe and to work with partners at UC Davis Tahoe Environmental Research Center and the Tahoe Water Suppliers Association. 

“We are always looking for creative ways to encourage people to take care of Tahoe,” said Tahoe Fund CEO Amy Berry. “We think this is a fun way to drive more people to drink Tahoe Tap instead of using plastic water bottles.  We are thankful to our partners at Raley’s for continuing their efforts to get this message out.”

The campaign is an extension of the partnership with Raley’s to promote Drink Tahoe Tap water bottles in their stores. Drink Tahoe Tap water bottles are available for purchase at all nearby Raley’s locations. 

To help motivate people to share their photos and incentivize others to Boost those photos with donations, PixlBank has developed a built-in sweepstakes model that converts peoples’ actions (and donations) into entries to win awesome prizes, like GoPro® cameras and video drones. 

I Love Tahoe and Drink Tahoe Tap will give Tahoe visitors and residents a fun and rewarding way to empower and invest their social currency in the preservation and restoration of Lake Tahoe.


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Lake Tahoe Destination Stewardship Council