Love Tuolumne County
Guest post by Howard White, Love Tuolumne County
Love Tuolumne County’s mission is to beautify and improve the communities in Tuolumne County. We do this by partnering with dozens of organizations on creative ideas of how to enhance our community. These partners include our amazing sponsors such as Sonora Area Foundation, Adventist Health Sonora, Front Porch, ARCH Medical Solutions, Word of Life Fellowship, as well as city, county, and community-minded organizations. Of course, our largest partners are the hundreds of Tuolumne County volunteers who show up every year with the common goal of making our county a better place to live, work, and enjoy! Love Tuolumne County is modeled after the Love Modesto / Love Our Cities concept, which eighteen years ago took Modesto from being identified as one of the worst communities in the US to live, to being a community that now works together to enhance life for its residents and visitors.
In the last six years, Love Tuolumne County has gathered more than 1,500 volunteers to complete 125-plus projects throughout the county, and raised more than $138,000 in sponsorships to subsidize project costs. We have partnered with numerous schools, residential and public areas, local parks, community gardens, various hiking trails, and many other places in across our community to bring some love by creating access to outdoor recreation, building play structures, rebuilding and renovating, painting, doing weed removal, landscaping, and generally creating beauty that enhances what’s already in place. In 2026, we are able to take on some larger projects such as partnering with Habitat for Humanity Sonora and The Refuge to transform two motels purchased by the county through grant funds for families and individuals. We also partnered with the county to improve Standard Park facilities, including fences, adding pavers and picnic tables, and soon to add shade structures, water fountains, and water bottle fillers. Our goal is consistent – to do whatever we can, to the fullest extent that we can, leaning heavily on our families, friends and neighbors, to remake our corner of the world into a better place.
Our focus has previously been our annual Serve Weekend, the last weekend in April. In the future, we are looking to provide more value throughout the year, with additional major volunteer days or weekends. We hope that many reading this will join us for a few hours every once-in-a-while to make our community stronger. Yes, it’s actually F-U-N!! Our website is www.LoveTuolumneCounty.org. Here we accept project nominations, list approved projects that volunteers can sign up to join, and where people can donate money to help fund these projects. We also promote these projects on our Facebook page, and on Instagram, where people who follow us can learn what projects are available.
Come join us – these are amazing experiences and we offer a free Love Tuolumne T-shirt to every volunteer!
