The North Umpqua Foundation has been awarded two grants totaling $7,000 to help increase citizen involvement in protection and restoration of the North Umpqua River.

A grant of $4,000 from Patagonia will help support Stranding Watch, a program to recruit volunteers to monitor fluctuating water levels caused by hydropower production, and to report the resulting stranding and death of small fish. Stranding Watch has served to increase public awareness of the vulnerability of juvenile salmon to rapidly changing water levels and has helped to virtually eliminate stranding events on the river since the program's inception in 2001. Patagonia, a designer and distributor of active-use outdoor clothing, provides grants to grassroots organizations advocating for clean water and healthy rivers.

Funding from the Ralph L. Smith Foundation will also assist The North Umpqua Foundation in building programs and expanding its base of partners. Smith was a lumberman who owned timber and mills across the Pacific Northwest; and the family's foundation supports small, rural organizations working for "systemic and institutional change" to make Oregon "more democratic, equitable, just and environmentally healthy." The North Umpqua Foundation has received funding from the Ralph L. Smith foundation for the past four years.

Read more about the awards in an article in the Douglas County News-Review.