North Lake Tahoe recruits volunteers for ambassador program

Published Aug. 27, 2020

North Lake Tahoe is now seeking ambassadors to help expand education on destination stewardship and community safety. Local business organizations and Placer County have launched the volunteer North Lake Tahoe Ambassador Program to assist with trash cleanup, distribution of personal protective equipment and peer-to-peer communication in an effort to establish long-term solutions among North Lake Tahoe communities.

“Our hope is that coordinated cleanup efforts, combined with increased trash pickup service and the placement of additional receptacles and signage, will evoke permanent change across eastern Placer County,” explained District 5 Supervisor Cindy Gustafson. “Community outreach and visitor education will further support the infrastructure updates we have implemented to address these issues.” 

The North Lake Tahoe Ambassador Program will support existing community cleanup days while also focusing on safety messaging to help keep businesses open. Following two days where hand sanitizer, face masks and yard signs were made available to businesses and community members at no cost, there are still ample supplies to share.

“We recognize the innate need to keep North Lake Tahoe communities safe and local businesses open,” explained Jeffrey Hentz, CEO of the North Lake Tahoe Resort Association. “Our goal is to provide opportunities for full-time residents to participate in and also educate and activate visitors and part-time residents to support these efforts and get involved with various aspects of destination stewardship – taking care of the environment as if it was their own home. While we are not promoting travel to North Lake Tahoe, we know there is an overwhelming desire for people to get outside and enjoy nature – we want to ensure they are doing so responsibly. Through a variety of content campaigns and the newly launched ambassador program, we are committed to ongoing efforts that support the region as a whole.”

For more information on the ambassador program visit the NLTRA blog at https://www.nltra.org. Volunteers will be asked to fill out a form and review a short training video. They will be provided with proper personal protective equipment and education materials. Ambassadors select hours and days they want to volunteer and will be asked to log their time each week. The program will run year-round and is open to full- and part-time residents and visitors.

Throughout the phased reopening process, the North Lake Tahoe Resort Association and Placer County have partnered to develop reopening toolkits for select business industries in the region, hosted town hall meetings to communicate effectively across each business sector and worked closely with regional partners to advocate for safety messaging on trails and in front of high-trafficked areas. Coming soon is a facilitated community town hall to address regional issues that have surfaced amid COVID-19, which include increased day visitation and recreation usage across the Lake Tahoe basin. The solution-oriented approach will be formatted to take community feedback and identify various ways to address critical needs.

“We continue to listen to feedback from our local constituents,” said Erin Casey, principal management analyst for Placer County's North Lake Tahoe County Executive Office. “We are committed to the health and safety of North Lake Tahoe and to ensuring our community remains a beautiful place to live, visit, work and play.”