WASHINGTON D.C.
Thompson announces over $665,000 in funding for Touro University Workforce Training Program
On Tuesday, Rep. Mike Thompson (CA-05) announced a $665,256 grant for Touro University’s Resiliency Workforce Training Program. This funding will help Touro support and train health care and public safety workers who have been on the frontlines of the pandemic.
“As we recover from the COVID-19 pandemic, getting people back on the job must be a top priority,” said Thompson. “By investing in workforce training programs, we can prepare workers for careers in new and high-demand fields while ensuring that we’re addressing pandemic burnout. This grant will help Touro support our health care and public safety workers and ensure that they have a safe and secure space to learn how to protect our communities.”
“As we head into our third year of the COVID pandemic, high levels of stress and burnout challenge our healthcare system. With this grant, Touro University California is excited to develop intervention strategies to increase resiliency, enhance self-care efforts, foster a culture of community wellness, and create safe and responsive spaces for healthcare workers to learn, work, and thrive,” said Dr. Sarah Sweitzer, Provost and CAO of Touro University California.
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KELSEYVILLE
Big Valley 4H work on community service project
On Saturday January 8, members and families of Big Valley 4H Club met in the cold and fog to plant daffodils in front of the Lake Family Resource Center on Main Street in Kelseyville.
The club members had collected donations from friends and family, and the Kelseyville Business Association also made a generous contribution to the fund.
They received enough funds to purchase 600 daffodil bulbs, which have been planted around the driveway of Lake Family Resource Center. They should provide a beautiful show of blooms in a couple of months.
The flowers planted will blend in with the flowers the club planted on Gas Hill several years ago. The club also planted nearly 2,000 daffodils at Ely Stage Stop Country Museum over the course of the last couple of years.
The Daffodil Community Service Project was the brainchild of long-time community member Marilyn Holdenried. The Big Valley 4H Club has been planting bulbs purchased from donations in the community ever since and has many other locations around town on their list for future years.
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LAKE COUNTY
Cooperation and conflict in the communal world of the Acorn Woodpecker
The Thursday Jan. 20 program meeting for the Redbud Audubon Society will feature Dr. Walt Koenig, an expert on Acorn Woodpeckers and a scientist who has been studying these fascinating birds for years. The program will be on Zoom and starts at 7 p.m. To register, go to www.redbudaudubon.org and click on the Registration Link on the home page. The link to join will be sent to you the day of the program.
Acorn Woodpeckers, best known for their unique habit of storing acorns by the thousands in special structures known as “granaries,” exhibit one of the most complex social systems of any bird. Family groups of this species, sometimes numbering a dozen or more birds, contain multiple breeders of both sexes, a rare phenomenon called “polygynandry,” along with young from prior years that serve as “helpers-at-the-nest.” Based on a study of this species at Hastings Reservation in Monterey County, Dr. Koenig will explain some of the strikingly cooperative and surprisingly competitive behaviors of this species that he and his colleagues have discovered during their 50+ year field study.
After studying Acorn Woodpeckers for his Ph.D., Walt Koenig was a Research Zoologist at Hastings Reservation, a field station located in the upper Carmel Valley run by the Museum of Vertebrate Zoologist at UC Berkeley, from 1982 to 2008. He subsequently was a Senior Scientist at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology in Ithaca, New York, from 2008 to 2016. He retired in 2016 and returned to upper Carmel Valley, where he currently studies acorn production by California oaks and continues to contribute to the Acorn Woodpecker study.
Please join us for this fascinating program and learn about the habits of this common yet amazing resident bird of Lake County.
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