Dr. Sarah Pender has always had a passion for the mountains and has always felt at home in the Sierra Nevada mountains in particular. An educator by career, Sarah started a backpacking club at the high school where she taught to help foster a similar appreciation of nature within her students. Sarah’s dedication to nature and to education are what have led her down a trail of discovery over the last 40 years, searching for a way to fund projects that would have a direct benefit to this corner of the world she had grown so fond of. During those 40 years, Sarah has been seeking an existing program for residents of the Sierra Nevadas to support and fund projects and efforts that support the Sierras where they work, play, and live. Her goals were simple, a program or organization dedicated to protecting, preserving, and restoring Sierra Nevada lands, water, wildlife, and communities.
What she found was… nothing. No matter where she looked, nothing fit the vision that she had defined for what she intended to be her legacy, a program that would ensure a healthy, beautiful, and thriving Sierra Nevada region for future generations to enjoy as she herself had enjoyed them for most of her life.
Dr. Pender would not describe herself as a visionary or even someone who should be praised or recognized for her educational and philanthropic achievements over the years, but after searching 40 years for something that she was told countless times didn’t exist, she made it her mission to ensure it would exist for all those who would come after. Her search included consultations with Earthjustice, the Sierra Fund, the Sierra Nevada Conservancy, the University of San Francisco, and the Sierra Club all in an attempt to find an existing program that had a mechanism in place for Sierra Nevada based organizations to receive direct funding for defined projects benefiting that defined region. Determined in the legacy she wanted to leave to the world, Sarah decided that if she wanted to see her vision made reality, she would need to make it happen herself. Thus, the Sierra Nevada Foundation at the El Dorado Community Foundation was born.
The defined purpose of the Sierra Nevada Foundation is to support the charitable conservancy goals of protecting, preserving, and restoring Sierra Nevada lands, water, wildlife, and communities. These goals can be achieved through activist-based tools to protect resources, including but not limited to watershed restoration, water quality monitoring, air quality monitoring, forest health monitoring, land and water rights acquisition, conservation easements, land use planning, litigation, legislation (within allowable limits defined by Internal Revenue Code), advocacy, grassroots organizing, communications, environmental clean-up, and most importantly, environmental education. The scope of what the Sierra Nevada Foundation looks to accomplish might appear to be broad but is actually quite focused when viewed through the lens of intent, that intent being the long-term preservation of the majestic Sierra Nevada region for future generations to enjoy, as we enjoy it now.
The geographic region to benefit from the Sierra Nevada Foundation is the boundary defined by the Laird-Leslie Sierra Nevada Conservancy Act of 2004. This geographic region is quite diverse and spans twenty-four different counties within California, from Modoc County in the north to Kern County at the southern end. It has been determined that Funding preference will be given to charitable organizations that are themselves located within the defined geographic region. This decision was made in an effort to foster locally sourced solutions to problems that might face the this region now or in the future, as who is better positioned to understand the needs of the region than those located within its boundaries? Preserving and improving the region might be the main goals of the Sierra Nevada Foundation, but more than anything, the fund aims to foster that love and passion for the region within its inhabitants that Dr. Pender strove to instill within her students all those years ago through her backpacking club.
The Sierra Nevada Foundation is a seed that has been planted by Dr. Sarah Pender that will grow and spread long into the future as a guardian of this magnificent part of the world. While the projects themselves are left to the organizations serving the Sierra Nevada region to develop, we welcome everyone to get creative and think of things they would like to see happen within the region. Maybe you would like to see expanded accessibility for certain trails, or maybe you have a grander vision of an Immersion and Education Center where educators can take students to learn about conservation of our natural resources here in the Sierra Nevadas. We invite you to get excited about the Sierra Nevada Foundation, because you are the future of this region, and your passion will be what caries this into that future vision of a pristine Sierra Nevada region for our children and our children’s children to enjoy as we have.
You can learn more about the Sierra Nevada Foundation by contacting El Dorado Community Foundation’s Donor Services Coordinator at lois@eldoradocf.org. If you would like to support the preservation, sustainability, and beautification of the Sierra Nevada region, a place we all hold dear to our hearts, consider donating here.
Such wonderful news! Thank you Dr Pender for this legacy and to Lois and Foundation staff for bringing this exciting fund to fruition!!