SIERRA STREAMS
Watershed Monitoring, Research, & Restoration
Friends of Deer Creek is a legacy membership program supporting the efforts of Sierra Streams Institute to monitor the Deer Creek watershed. Deer Creek flows through downtown Nevada City and is a symbol of our love and connection to our environment. When you become a member of the Friends of Deer Creek, you are fiscally contributing to the environmental science and understanding of this watershed. Since its early days, Friends of Deer Creek—and subsequently Sierra Streams Institute (SSI)—has played a significant role in community understanding and stewardship of watershed health in the Northern Sierra Nevada mountains. We have historically worked with local, state, and federal agencies as well as universities, tribes, and community groups to find solutions to the problems that afflict Deer Creek, the Bear River and other watersheds throughout the region.
Over 30 years ago, during construction of the Pine Street Bridge, local resident Mary Anne Kreshka noticed discolored water coming from Gold Run Creek and into Deer Creek. She reached out to her retired chemist neighbor, John Van der Veen, about her concern and the two of them created a group of concerned citizens who began to monitor Deer Creek. They hired local biologist Joanne Hild as their founding Executive Director, and ventured to put science in the hands of the community. This group dubbed themselves “Friends of Deer Creek” and we launched our new membership program to commemorate this vision of community science.
As we continue to struggle with the impacts of climate change, development, fire, and myriad other impacts to local waterways we are grateful for our decades of monitoring data that helps Sierra Streams understand the bigger picture of what is happening to our local creeks. When you join the Friends of Deer Creek, you are supporting SSI’s continued efforts to monitor our local creeks and support a healthy watershed for our community now and in the future.
Your support means the world to us and we appreciate your commitment to science and caring for this amazing ecosystem we live in.
Other than your support of ongoing water quality monitoring of Deer Creek, Friends of Deer Creek receive the following benefits:
Our membership tiers are designed for you to show your support of the creeks at whatever level best works for your budget. Choose from the following:
Monthly business sponsors see the work impact of ongoing stream monitoring as a community necessity and see their support as an essential part of maintaining a healthy environment. Benefits of business sponsorship include: logo on our Friends of Deer Creek supporters page, shout out on social media for special events, and a window decal advertising your support of SSI and Deer Creek:
SSI offers the following tiers and benefits for business sponsors:
If you are interested in becoming a business sponsor, please reach out to our Development Associate, Taya Burke: taya@sierrastreamsinstitute.org
