Lompoc Resilience Gardens
Late in 2021 LegacyWorks Group began connecting with local groups in the Lompoc community to understand challenges, needs, strengths and opportunities.
Self Healing Communities
Following the tragic death of Marlon Brumfield and other youth in Lompoc in 2018, Yasmin Dawson and Cozy Blow co-founded Collective Cultures Creating Change (C4) Lompoc as a non-profit organization committed to reducing violence, improving outcomes for youth and catalyzing systemic change in Lompoc.
City of Goleta Ellwood Mesa
The City of Goleta’s Parks and Open Space Division invited LegacyWorks Group to help them unveil their efforts to restore the monarch butterfly habitat at Ellwood Mesa. To ensure the community is aware of the remarkable amount of work that’s been done and the science behind the plan, our team is synthesizing years of community input, research, and planning into simple, clear messages and stories.
Wastewater Surveillance Dashboard
During 2020-2021, LegacyWorks partnered with Santa Barbara County to develop the Community Data Dashboard to provide residents and leaders with timely access to trustworthy data on COVID-19. In 2022 our partnership expanded COVID-19 monitoring and reporting through implementing wastewater surveillance.
Community Wellbeing Dashboard
Last year we partnered with the Santa Barbara County CEO’s Office and six County departments to develop and launch a Community Wellbeing Dashboard that reports on an array of metrics across nine key focus areas. Together we developed a community wellbeing framework that allows us to identify and report on key factors that contribute to community wellness, creating a tool to inform decision making and track progress over time.
Resilient Santa Barbara County (RSBC), PACEs Connection and Network of Care
Resilient Santa Barbara County (SBC) is a countywide network dedicated to preventing and reducing the impacts of Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) in Santa Barbara County. It is overseen by the ACEs Steering Committee, a group of volunteers who are shaping the vision, purpose, principles and objectives of this emerging network.
Network of Care and FindHelp
The LegacyWorks team worked alongside Cottage Health to help provide support for community organizations to implement FindHelp. FindHelp is the platform chosen by the Network of Care to implement a standardized referral system and resource directory throughout the county social sector.
Library Ad Hoc Committee Facilitation
The Santa Barbara County Library Ad Hoc Committee was established by the Board of Supervisors to find a sustainable and equitable model for county libraries. Members of the committee include two County Supervisors, four Library Directors, one member of a library Friends group, one Library Advisory Committee member, and the Director of the County Community Services Department.
Wildfire Incident Dashboard
In consultation with diverse stakeholder groups, including Santa Barbara County Fire and community stakeholders, the LegacyWorks team developed a Wildfire Incident Dashboard prototype.
Prescribed Herbivory
Prescribed herbivory and grazing is a unique tool that can reduce fire fuels, create mosaics of open space in thick brush, reduce invasive species, improve soils and native habitat, and reduce the risk of high-severity fires.
Indigenous Cultural Burning Practices
Indigenous people traditionally used low intensity fire to shape landscapes, ensure the abundance of culturally important plants, create clearings for wildlife and open understories for access to foraging areas. Today, Good Fire has functionally been removed from our landscape due to the loss of cultural burning traditions combined with more than 100 years of aggressive fire suppression.
Goleta Riparian Corridor Wildfire Risk Reduction & Restoration Project
The Goleta Riparian Corridor Wildfire Risk Reduction & Restoration Project was funded by a California Coastal Conservancy Grant and builds on initial planning work by the Environmental Defense Center that identified wildfire risks and restoration opportunities in numerous sites within twelve watersheds.
Wildfire Resilience Collaborative
Santa Barbara is rich in natural communities that are specifically adapted to its Mediterranean climate. These include coastal scrub, chaparral and foothill woodland plant communities, some of the world's most imperiled ecosystems.
SBC Water Quality Dashboard
Our Santa Barbara team has the great pleasure of living and working in the Santa Barbara region, while also interfacing with our teams working in the northern Rockies and in southern Baja California Sur. While far apart, all the communities we work with are facing the worst drought in the historical record, exacerbating long term challenges around water quality and water supply. Frustratingly, it can be remarkably difficult to get straightforward data on the state of our water.
Chumash Good Fire Project
Since our last letter to you, December rains have rejuvenated the hillsides and provided a brief respite from the concern of wildfires. Yet with such a dry, hot January and February and the continuing drought, we’re rapidly headed into a long season of very high fire risk. The question of how we learn to live with this new wildfire regime is at the forefront of our minds.
Tracking Variants
The pandemic has arguably become a race between vaccinations and variants, with vaccinations critical to keeping the spread of more contagious and more impactful variants of COVID from driving another spike in case counts here. The dashboard is now tracking both critical elements of what we hope is the final leg of this marathon.
Vaccination data added to Community Dashboard
Three months ago we launched the The Santa Barbara Community Data Dashboard. Since then we have worked closely with the County Public Health Department to refine and adapt the dashboard as the State changed policies and set, then lifted restrictions.
Collaborative Community Dashboard
True to our mission to help organizations collaborate on critical challenges that no single agency can tackle on their own, LegacyWorks Santa Barbara facilitated a public-private partnership and launched a countywide COVID-19 Data Dashboard.
Conservation Loan Fund
In the face of unprecedented threats from climate change, development and land conversion, LegacyWorks is launching the Central Coast Conservation Loan Fund to accelerate the pace and scale of conservation, restoration and regenerative agriculture in the region.
Ventura Land Trust Mariana Ranch
In late 2019, the Ventura Land Trust had an opportunity to purchase Mariana Rancho, an iconic hillside property overlooking the city of Ventura. LegacyWorks helped the Land Trust develop a short-term finance strategy and a longer-term fundraising plan.