The information of this message comes from Del Norte Library District Literacy Coordinator Danny Clark.
Could you use assistance with your reading? How about assistance with basic computer skills; like word processing, writing a resume or setting up an email? Do you need help preparing for your GED or HiSET? Are you learning English as a second language and would like to improve your reading, speaking and listening skills?
Del Norte Reads is here to help with all this and much more!
Del Norte Reads — a grant and donation funded nonprofit organization aimed at helping community members with all aspects of functional literacy — is a library program that works in conjunction with the Del Norte County Library District to provide free literacy services to community members. They proudly provide assistance with reading, writing, math, computer literacy, GED prep and much more.
They are looking for compassionate volunteers to tutor our hard working learners. We provide materials and training. Even an hour or two a week can make a huge impact in the lives of the program’s learners.
All of Del Norte Reads’ services are free and they are more than happy to provide accommodations for a diverse group of learners.
“Fun times on Adult Literacy Day at the Del Norte Reads Open House.” – From the Del Norte Reads Facebook Page.
If this program sounds like something you or someone you know would enjoy being a part of this program, you can call them at (707) 464-7072 or stop by and see them in person at 1080 Mason Mall suite 9. More information is available at the Main branch of the Del Norte County Library.
“Happy Thanksgiving from all of us at the Del Norte County Library (including our visiting dinosaurs)! […] Happy Thanksgiving!” – From the Del Norte County Library Facebook Page.
On this week’s Health Matters, KFUG Community Radio’s show about all things health with local PA Lynn Szabo, we sit down to talk about the thing you’ve already heard about: COVID-19’s Omicron variant.
Very little medical information is present as this remains an unfolding story. The first cases reported came from South Africa, November 24th, 2021 (with those particular cases initially being reported November 9th, 2021.) The Omicron variant itself has approximately 50 of its own mutations at the time of reporting, 30 of which are on the spike protein.
In short: we don’t a know whole lot just yet. The effectiveness of current vaccines against Omicron is yet to be determined, but the response from scientist has been a matter of weeks instead of months like previously, with Moderna and Pfizer looking at the vaccine response to this variant.
All this being said—what’s a concerned Del Norter to do? It’s back to the basics, or continuing for those who have listened:
Get your third dose. (Talk to your provider or pharmacist about what’s available)
Wear your mask, correctly. (The nose is part of the respiratory system too.)
Isolate and distance. (While you don’t need to confine yourself to a dungeon, don’t start rushing into groups of strangers.)
Wash your hands. (Come on. Don’t be gross.)
Don’t touch your face. (Might be tempting but if you skipped that last step, you’re really gonna want to listen.)
For the full talk with PA Lynn Szabo, you can listen to the full episode of Health Matters below!
Health Matters is hosted by Lynn Szabo and Paul Critz. This episode also featured Oliver Corcovelos and Mike Thornton. Produced by Persephone Rose.
Health Matters is on live every Tuesday at 11am on KFUG Community Radio 101.1 FM and streaming online at kfugradio.org!
The audio version of this PSA, as made for radio—by Persephone Rose.
The Wild Rivers Community Foundation is conducting a survey to understand the impact that COVID-19 has had on the youth of our community, primarily those aged 16 to 24 out of work and out of school. The data gained from this research will support the operations of various social programs and has a vital role in serving the underserved youth of our community.
You can access the survey with the bit.ly link: bit.ly/DNYSurvey (note that the link is case-sensitive.) You can also scan the QR code on their flier, which has been included below. All participants will receive a $10 coffee gift card and will be entered to win 1 of 4 $100 VISA Gift Cards.
Here at KFUG and Redwood Voice Paul Critz and yours truly, Oliver Corcovelos, interviewed Forester Lathrop Leonard to talk about the one acre fire over on Howland Hill and give an update about the fire, what it’s affecting, and how it all started.
Lathrop Leonard We discovered a week ago Sunday but suspected was going on for almost two weeks prior to that, there was a lightning storm you may recall that came through and started another fire in the park that we put out fairly quickly. But this one nobody noticed because it was just kind of smoldering up in the tree tops for a number of days before it managed to make its way to the ground and start spreading and putting up enough smoke for people to realize it was out there.
Paul Critz And initially, when you discovered that a week ago this last Sunday, what was the extent of it then? How many trees?
Lathrop Leonard So it was about an acre on the ground and about five trees were burning up in the canopies. And so what happened is one of these trees probably got on fire from the lightning. And once it started burning actively up there embers and pieces of the tree, I mean, sometimes just little embers and other times big branches, like 100 pound branches would fall to the ground on fire. And then that all lit the ground on fire and it spread on the ground and even from tree to tree. And so we ended up with about five trees on fire when we discovered it and started actively suppressing that fire.
Paul Critz Oh, my gosh. So you did something that I had never heard being done before, and that was installed sprinkler systems. Is that correct?
Lathrop Leonard That’s right. We had some regular sprinklers like you would see in your yard on the ground so that if something fell out of the tree, it fell on the wet material so that it wouldn’t start another top fire. But then we also needed to get water where the fire was. And so we had a series of ropes and things that were pulling these sprinklers and the typical brass garden hose that people may be using in their yard. We’re hauling a bunch of those up there attached to hoses to help put this thing out.
Paul Critz Wow. Now, is that like, ad hoc? Is this something that is commonly done or is just a fix that you guys made up?
Lathrop Leonard Well, you know, I don’t know if anybody who’s been doing this outside of California state parks, but it’s something that we’ve been kind of developing and improving over the years over the last, I don’t know, maybe ten or twelve years or so in parks. Mostly, we seem to have more of these down in humble Redwoods State Park area, but certainly we’ve been putting them out up here and within Redwood, national and state parks, as this one, of course, is in Jedi Smith Redwoods, all those that happens everywhere, and we just have to kind of adjust and each fire up there is a little bit different so that the techniques kind of change a little bit and evolve over time as we figure out what works best in each situation, the last resort, if we can’t put it out from the ground is we’ll send a tree climber into a neighboring tree, and then they can squirt water from there. But obviously, tree climbing. That’s something Arbors and other folks do. We have some folks that are specially trained in climbing trees, but anytime you’re getting off the ground like that, it’s kind of a heads up from a safety standpoint. So we’d rather risk hoses and people’s lives.
Lathrop Leonard Forester For California State Parks and the go to guy to talk to about the fire on Holland Hill. All of us at KFUG and Redwood Voice thank you and all the firefighters working on this to keep our community safe and appreciate the lengths you go to to protect our redwoods.
The audio version of this report is available for listening!
In August 2021, Del Norte County District 2 Supervisor Valerie Starkey found out that because Sutter Coast Hospital is overflowing with COVID-19 patients, they had to close their cafeteria to prevent an even wider spread of Covid-19. When she heard this she decided to call out to the community to donate food and water to our healthcare workers to make sure they are being taken care of.
Robert DeRego, owner of Sticky Grove, heard Valerie’s plea and decided to give back to the community that’s unique to his dispensary business. Redwood Voice Reporter E. Corcovelos Interviewed Rob to get more information on how he was going to give back to his community.
E. Corcovelos You wanted to give out some of your products to medical professionals. How did that all start?
Robert DeRego Actually, we saw Supervisor Starkey’s post about giving something back to healthcare workers, and started thinking of what I could do. And a couple of people came to the window in scrubs on, and got something—they seemed to be in a hurry. I figured that’d be an easy way to get back and show to me, and I thought maybe so far it’s been underutilized. If anybody wants to take advantage of that, we would like to help out anybody and show a little love that’s being shown at the hospital right now.
E. Corcovelos What does it entail exactly?
Robert DeRego It’s been underutilized so far. We’ve got a few regulars that help out infusion center in different places like that. But I have a couple of gummies, some joints if somebody comes in with an order and generally been trying to take care of them on that, we kind of had a budget for it in mind, and so far it’s nowhere been near exhausted.
E. Corcovelos Are you going to stop this anytime? Is it just going to go until your budget runs out for it?
Robert DeRego You know, I’m not sure. Sometimes I get jaded with our local government, but the community is just great. And so we’ll do it until it until we can’t do it. And so far, I haven’t had any sign that I can’t do it. Nobody is exhausting my resources on it. And maybe in the future, we’d like to recognize retail workers as well. And so we might switch gears here if we can get the hospital empty to say thanks to the retail workers in a similar way.
E. Corcovelos Oh, that’s so cool, man. So people just show up in their scrubs and be like “I’m a medical professional“?
Robert DeRego Yeah, and I’m stoned a lot of the day. Sometimes you might need to save scrub, or there’s something to remind me a little bit, but I’ve got masks on the window there. And the masks on the window are trying to remind me to look for scrubs. Sometimes I do forget there. And still, I probably might forget. So any little gentle hint to remind me is helpful in these situations.
E. Corcovelos I think that’s really cool personally. And it’s just a way to give back, and I dig it.
Robert DeRego Yeah, I was afraid some people will say, hey, these people don’t have time for this. But actually, if you’re working, the only thing I’ve ever done is food service and that kind of thing. And then you’re working on a high paced environment, it’s so hard to get to bed when you do have a chance. All of a sudden you’re wound up. And so I think some people could take some benefit out of that when they do get a chance to go to bed, to actually get to bed for a few hours. I know our medical community’s up against quite a quite a really proud and grateful to them.
So if you are a medical worker in need of some help relaxing or even falling asleep after a long shift, head on over to Sticky Grove. Let Rob know you work for the medical field, and he will give you the hook up.
2021 is already almost over and so many bad things have happened that it’s hard to keep up. And, as exhausting as it can be to keep up with current news, it’s very important to remain vigilant. For example, this year saw the rise of legislation targeting transgender rights. A record number of bills have been introduced in states across the US this year that seek to interfere with trans people’s safety and even prevent trans youth from accessing gender-affirming care. Two anti-trans bills from Tennessee and Arkansas that restricted trans rights in their states managed to become law. The bill in Tennessee required businesses to post signs on bathroom doors “warning” people if their bathrooms are trans friendly. The bill in Arkansas would make it illegal for doctors to prescribe any gender affirming care to a patient under the age of 18. However, these laws were thankfully shot down by a federal court in July. While this is a great victory for the trans community, attacks on the rights of the trans community are far too common. Considering this, I would like to focus on the bill that was introduced in Arkansas back in April and unpack some of its contents, and refute some of the anti-trans rhetoric.
The S.A.F.E. Act
In April of 2021, Arkansas became the first state in the country to ban medical treatments for transgender minors. This bill, HB1570, is also titled THE ARKANSAS SAVE ADOLESCENTS FROM EXPERIMENTATION (SAFE) ACT. While being opposed by many, and even vetoed by the governor who had passed a different transphobic bill earlier this year, his veto was overturned by the Senate. Having read this bill in its entirety, I and many other trans activists find it to be deeply harmful and anything but safe.
The bill restricts any medical professional from providing or referring youth under the age of 18 to any gender affirming care. This includes puberty blockers, hormone replacement therapy, and surgeries. The stated reasoning behind this decision is that transgender people only make up a small portion of the population and there haven’t been enough scientific studies into the longterm effects of these gender affirming procedures.
It is important to mention that the most common form of gender affirming care that children and youth receive is puberty blockers, NOT hormones or surgeries. For many providers, a social transition is needed before they will even prescribe the blockers, to make sure that the child is comfortable living as their gender.
Puberty blockers, as the name suggests, are prescribed to youth to postpone their puberty. These blockers are not only prescribed to transgender youth, but also to cisgender youth who are developing much earlier than their peers. These blockers have been studied for their effect in youth for decades and have been found to be harmless and reversible. So, when adults begin to bemoan the use of puberty blockers in trans youth to prevent a possibly traumatic puberty, one has to question their intentions. There wasn’t this much of a pushback for cisgender children accessing these blockers. However, thanks to the recent bill in Arkansas, children of any gender identity will have a harder time accessing these blockers.
Harmful Outcomes
If this bill had not been blocked by a federal court, it would have caused tremendous harm to the trans youth in Arkansas. Not only are trans and gendernonconforming youth more at risk to be bullied by their peers, they also have a higher rate of self harm and suicide. According to the Trevor Project, “40% of transgender adults reported having made a suicide attempt. 92% of these individuals reported having attempted suicide before the age of 25”. Restricting access to gender-affirming care will only increase the mental duress that trans youth feel from gender dysphoria.
In addition, the process to accessing gender-affirming care like puberty blockers or hormone replacement therapy isn’t quick. In fact, most doctors who are capable of prescribing said medications require a letter from a psychiatrist who specializes in gender identity. Speaking from personal experience, I had to travel around 2 and a half hours to the nearest licensed psychiatrist who would be willing to discuss hormone replacement therapy. From there, it took months to get an appointment with a doctor who would prescribe testosterone to me. After that, it takes years of waiting to get a referral for top surgery and even longer to schedule the actual appointment. And this was while I was a legal adult advocating for myself, and I didn’t have to deal with potentially unsupportive parents, like many trans youth have to.
This process isn’t easy, and it’s often exhausting to young trans people who have already had to justify their identity to everyone around them. Now, they have to push through miles of red tape to plead their case to a medical professional, some of whom aren’t even willing to give care to transgender patients. Many trans people have reported discrimination or harrasment from medical professionals because of their gender identity. Restricting trans peoples’ access to healthcare would also reduce the amount of trans patients that doctors would communicate with, isolating them from the community as well.
Next Steps: Becoming an Effective Advocate
First things first, educating yourself about transgender issues and terminology is crucial to becoming an effective ally. There are plenty of online resources like GLAAD or the ACLU website that can teach you more about transgender identity. It’s alwasy incredibly important to keep in mind that trans people of color experience higher rates of violence, harassment, and medical discrimination.
Secondly, if you live in one of the states that currently has anti-trans bills introduced, please call your representative and ask them to fight it. You can find out if your state has bills either enacter or proposed at theguardian.com, where there is a map detailing each state and their fight against anti-trans bills.
Finally, be an advocate for transgender people in your own social circles. If you hear the kind of anti-trans rhetoric that these bills are promoting, call it out. Take the time to educate those around you about trans issues and encourage them to become advocates as well. The trans community needs allies who care about our wellbeing and our right to exist as ourselves.
Wondering how to get your COVID Vaccine? Del Norte County Public Health is offering free vaccinations to all comers Tuesdays & Wednesdays from 10am to Noon, at the fairgrounds in Crescent City. No appointment necessary.
It’s as simple as following the giant color coded signs.
Step 1. Fill out a form. Step 2. Show the friendly and helpful volunteers your form. Step 3. Get vaccinated. Step 4. Hang out for 15 minutes. It’s as simple as that.
Now that you know how to get vaccinated, why should you get vaccinated?
We asked Head Volunteer-Volunteer (one who volunteers to be the Head Volunteer) Debra Wakefield.
From Debra Wakefield:
If you’ve already got your vaccine, you’re already part of the solution here in Del Norte County. So the only way we’re going to stop this virus is by getting as many people vaccinated as we can. So the reason you should come down is for yourself, to be safe. It’s for your family, to keep all your family members safe—grandma, grandpa, kids, everybody. And in my book it’s for your community, we want to open up our businesses, we want to have as normal a life as you possibly can here in Crescent City. Only way we’re going to do that is to get a ton of people vaccinated. So do it for yourself, do it for your family, and please, please do it for our community.
Debra Wakefield, Head Volunteer at the Fairgrounds Vaccine Clinic
Can’t make the weekly event at the fairgrounds? Call your local pharmacy for an appointment—at the time of this report, Walmart, Walgreens, and Rite Aid have vaccines and are taking appointments or walk-ins, depending, with most other pharmacies soon to have them.
Tribal members can call United Indian Health Services at (707) 465-2975 to make an appointment.
Let’s get back to normal—get vaccinated. For Redwood Voice,
Sources of Strength in Del Norte are closer than they might seem!
This program is nationwide, but we’re talking about the team of youths right here at home. They’re here to spread messages and engage with the community, kicking it off with their “We Belong” Campaign!
And of course, a special thanks to the team of youths who spoke in this video—Valeria, Abigal, Andy, Alivia, and Annalee!—who not only provided their voices, but are part of the actual initiative of this program.
Listen—we know Amazon and Jeff Bezos are comically evil at this point. From the scary time those really robotic tweets supporting Amazon were coming out to the horrible mishaps that just kinda happen to the lack of ethics behind hording wealth that should be stimulating an already broken, shambling economy, we’ve seen it time and time again. And we tend to forget about it because we get used to worse stuff.
“[…] the scary time those really robotic tweets supporting Amazon were coming out[…]”“[…] to the horrible mishaps that just kinda happen[…]”“[…] to the lack of ethics behind hording wealth that should be stimulating an already broken, shambling economy.”
“[…] we’ve seen it time and time again. And we tend to forget about it because we get used to worse stuff.“
Let this week be a reminder to break out of that cycle.
Over the past month, the workers of an Amazon warehouse in Bessemer, Alabama have been voting on unionizing. Some sources say the voting has concluded while others suggest it’s still in progress, so for our purposes we’ll consider the voting in progress until we see final results. Unionizing, if successful, would make them the first Amazon warehouse to unionize! Specifically, they’re looking to join the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, or RWDSU.
The beautiful thing about this is it hasn’t gone under the radar, we’re far from the first to talk about this. Frankly the entire country is talking about it! #BoycottAmazon is trending on Twitter and other social media—primarily from a consumer led movement. A Mashable article from Tim Marcin says, “It’s important to note, though, that this call for action isn’t coming from inside the union. An RWDSU spokesperson confirmed as much to Mashable in a Sunday phone call. Boycott or not, this ongoing vote and the efforts to make it happen represent a critically important moment for union activists. Should the Bessemer’s unionization effort prove successful, other Amazon workers could follow suit.”
Representative Andy Levin of Detroit, Michigan told the workers of this warehouse, “This is the most important election for the working class of this country in the 21st century. This is the biggest election in the South in a generation.”
Amazon’s reaction to this has been attempted union busting. They have a history of fighting Union activity, in fact when I searched for their response I found a CNBC Article by Katie Schoolov about an instance back in August of 2019 where Amazon took SEVERAL moves to block unionization, which included integrating anti-union messages in their employee training videos. As such, it’s little surprise that Amazon is reacting similarly, to the point that it’s been reported that Amazon may have tampered with traffic light timing. From the Verge, Russell Brandom: “Union organizers at the site had previously accused the company of altering the timing so that pro-union workers would not be able to canvass workers while stopped at the light.
Until recently, the altered timing on the traffic light outside the factory had been dismissed as a rumor. But More Perfect Union confirmed with Jefferson County officials that last year, Amazon notified the county of traffic delays during shift changes and asked for the light to be changed. On December 15th, the county increased the green light duration in an effort to clear workers off the worksite faster. There’s no indication that the county was aware of the ongoing organizing drive or any effect the traffic light changes might have on the effort.”
Of course, while this could be all chalked up to heresy and coincidence, it’s harder to look at it that way when considering their regular habits include very direct measures inside these warehouses. Noting, again, the training video incident, it’s reported further in that same article: “Amazon has vigorously contested the effort, posting anti-unionization flyers throughout the factory, most noticeably in the bathroom. In advance of the official vote, workers also received a flood from Amazon warning of potentially negative consequences from unionization.”
Even uh, more grossly, I saw that Amazon was suddenly broadcasting this.
Yes, yes it’s great to celebrate Black women-owned businesses Amazon, but dropping this in the middle of a boycott is clearly a guilt tactic used to make consumers feel uneasy about how they’re seen to others. Because you’re not doing that so much through Amazon, you’re still buying through Amazon. The business likely has their own shop on another platform as well you could just as easily go to without tossing more of your cash into Bezos’s Bezhole.
So, look—don’t use Amazon this week. And frankly? If you can, try not to use it. A friend of mine once taught me how to search for items I want on Amazon, viewing the manufacturer, and then finding that item either from the manufacturer or a different shop they work for. Oftentimes cheaper.
Jeff Bezos is a pit where money just evaporates, and sure, you can order some staples and Sanrio stickers and an inflatable boat in like two days, but it’s because we’ve given a lot of money to some rich cold sore on humanity, and now he’s just some rich guy who pays a poor person too little to do the thing for him that he still gets the praise for.
Don’t use Amazon this week. Remember: Capitalism is rough, but we are all its victims—we can buy our material goods from other stalls. Try Etsy instead.
This project was a collaborative effort from the Redwood Voice team. This project was led by Eleni Corcovelos. Video above created by Persephone Corvid Rose. The article and interview transcript below were proofread and edited by Avi Critz.
RPG Research is a non-profit charitable research and human services global volunteer-run organization studying the effects of cooperative music and all role-playing game formats and their potential to improve lives around the world. All of our staff and executives are 100% unpaid volunteers who believe in our Mission and Vision to make a real Impact. This includes research into role-playing game therapy (RPG Therapy), role-playing games for education (RPG education), applied role-role-playing gaming (applied RPG), and many other uses.
Video Interview Transcript
PERSEPHONE Hi, this is Persephone Corvid Rose with Redwood Voice.
ELENI Hi, I’m Eleni with Redwood Voice.
PERSEPHONE We are joined by one John Degler.
JD That’s my dad and grandfather, I’m JD.
PERSEPHONE We’re joined with JD today because Paul Critz, station manager of KFUG, told me something interesting about recreational therapy Dungeons and Dragons. And we’re joined with JD to talk about what that means.
JD Well I’ve been doing training with a company called RPG Research where they use tabletop role-playing games as recreational therapy for people who have a variety of issues that they deal with. It’s been a huge learning experience for me. I’ve been doing D&D for the better part of three decades or longer, but I haven’t approached it from this particular side so it’s been an adventure.
PERSEPHONE Awesome! You said it helps with various issues. What kinds? Like, if there’s just a laundry list.
JD There really isn’t. There’s all kinds of benefits of playing role-playing games from learning critical thinking skills to socializing skills. And mainly what it brings to the table is helping people who have troubles with those types of skills actually access them in an environment that is inclusive and non-threatening.
PERSEPHONE So, you’re currently in the training yourself. How’s that going? Tell me about that.
JD Oh, it’s absolutely lovely. It’s kind of fun, the original 12-week program for the level one training system was turned into 16 weeks. As I finished the last half of the 16 week program, Hawk, the gentleman who runs the company, discovered that his workbook wasn’t actually working and extended it to an 18-week program. It makes sense because some of the information is pretty intense. This isn’t just learning how to play a game, it’s learning the terminology that you need to become a recreational therapist over a number of trainings and how to apply it in an RPG setting and be effective without just playing the game and going “oh look we did it”.
PERSEPHONE I was going to ask, what are you doing for those 18 weeks?
JD Well, I have my workbook here. It’s a 302 page workbook.
PERSEPHONE Not only is it 302 pages, it’s like textbook margins so it’s a lot of stuff!
JD It’s stuffed with all of my notes, and my notes are copious because I don’t have experience in this particular aspect of RPGs, so I have to work harder at doing this. It’s been a really interesting stretch of my comfort zone.
PERSEPHONE What got you into doing this?
JD Well, I was actually online doing some research for one of my games and on Facebook I came across a post about RPG Research. And then I went to their website and I went “oh my god, I want to do this”. Our area is underserved. We don’t have a lot of programs for kids and the last after school program we had, the person who was running it got arrested. So yes…
PERSEPHONE Interesting.
JD So, I would like to return something like this to the area to give kids who are interested something to do. You have to learn multiple game sources and there are multiple different types of games. You have to learn the terminology involved with the games. Because, for example, you cannot call all of the “Choose Your Own Adventure Books” that are out there “Choose Your Own Adventure Books” because CYOB INC., the company that owns that trademark, just settled a lawsuit with Netflix over a program Netflix was doing that was a “Choose Your Own Adventure” program. You have to know the correct terminology so that people understand you and you don’t get sued.
PERSEPHONE It’s funny you gotta balance both those out. And is there anything you found since you’re learning different game systems and how that kind of translates to different kinds of recreational therapy?
JD Well, one of the one of the game systems I just recently played since week six was No Thank You, Evil! It’s a really simple almost LARP kind of game. It is tabletop based, you have a character sheet that’s very minimal and you have a guide. You bring the kids along through the quest. The one we did was something about “Dragon Snot Fountain” or “Dragon Snot Falls”. It was great! And it involves a lot of “get up and move” activities. In one part of the adventure you have to pretend you’re climbing a ladder. In another part, you have to do the bee dance to get the directions to where you need to go. And there’s a lot of activity involved to help stop what they call the wiggle butt syndrome little kids have and people who have really bad ADHD have.
PERSEPHONE Yeah, as one of those people that sounds great! I’m like yeah!
JD When you get up and move, you get involved more and that really helps with that aspect of keeping people involved and helping them focus. There’s other games out there like Doctor Who: Adventures in Time and Space. It’s a really simple system. It’s a lot of fun to do, and it really involves a fan base that people can get involved with. It helps them focus on that because, you know, they like Doctor Who let’s see what we’re gonna do!
PERSEPHONE Nice! Maybe sometime we gotta get, like, the full Redwood Voice team and you should bring us through one of these.
JD Oh yes! Oh, you guys would have so much fun with No Thank You, Evil! Another fun thing about that is if something seems too much for a kid, they have a little token that they can put down that says “no thank you evil” and they can skip it entirely. It’s a really interesting and fun system that I have never even seen before and it’s one of the things I’ve been exposed to because of this training.
PERSEPHONE I haven’t either because that’s much more of a like kinesthetic thing with people moving around. I don’t really see that in a lot of tabletop games.
JD It’s kind of a hybrid between tabletop and LARPing and it’s a lot of fun.
ELENI So, I personally really love that because I’ve had friends who tried to get me into D&D and the reason I can’t is because choices and like saying “oh can I do this?” makes me really anxious and panic a lot, so I like having the option to be like “no, no thanks”.
JD And then that’s something that tabletop RPGs in a recreational therapy setting could help people confront along with like decision making abilities. And it’s really beneficial, according to the research that Hawk has put together.
PERSEPHONE Kind of along the same lines of people who panic with decisions, I’ve run many a game where there’ll be someone on their phone the whole time and not paying attention or taking in the details and then conflict from there.
JD That’s actually really common at my table as well. And it’s worse because I use digital devices to help get content out to the players and it’s getting even worse now in COVID because everything is digital. So, I don’t have any personal strategies for getting around that other than “pay attention”.
PERSEPHONE So, that is actually a good segue question. Is this available during COVID times?
JD Yes! RPG Research is headquartered in Spokane, Washington, so all of the training I go through remotely and it’s really fun. We start each training module each week with our administrative stuff making sure we’ve done our homework and that kind of thing. We do a pre-test to show what our baseline competency is. We do applied gaming where we actually play a certain game system, and then we do our lecture which focuses on the questions of the initial quiz. Then, we do the applied gaming section again to finish it out and then we do our post test to see if we retain that information. It’s a really good system Hawk has worked up. I’m really really into this system. Of the 18 weeks, I think I have done 16 now. I started the first nights at week 10 and we kind of went and repeated several weeks because people weren’t able to show up. That happens during the winter. I’ve gone back through and started with week one and it’s been very informative and very very interesting.
PERSEPHONE Nice! Sounds very thorough.
JD Very thorough kind of application process! And it’s a lot of fun too. I’m on the radio, so people don’t think of me as being an introvert, but I am. And this has been education for me and how to interact with other people that I don’t know and that I’ve never met before and how to be open with them right from the get-go. Because that’s not usually who I am.
PERSEPHONE So, even the people like administering and kind of leading get to learn something from it too.
JD Oh yeah, absolutely.
PERSEPHONE And because it is remote, obviously it does have the thorough application process, but could anyone sign up to see if they’re eligible?
JD There is an application process. You basically go to the website rpgresearch.com, you click on recruitment, and it’ll take you to what jobs are available. If you’re interested in any of the numerous positions they have from research assistant to volunteer player level 1 training, you click on the link, you fill out the application and send a resume. And then they get back to you. It could be me because i’m the volunteer coordinator now! And not only do they have these volunteer positions open and paid positions on the LLC side, Hawk has invested in a bus and a trailer that he takes up and down the coast and all around the country. He takes role-playing games and tabletop role-playing games to different communities that are underserved. He’s actually passed through Crescent City before on his way down to Santa Rosa, where he’s originally from. I’m wanting him to bring that bus here so that we can get the interest going and get some kind of recreational therapy system based on tabletop roleplaying games going here.
PERSEPHONE I would love to see that. If you need any media help- [laughs]
JD It’s constantly growing. There’s more than 150 volunteers on six different continents. One of the other volunteer coordinators I’m training with is in Germany and he’s from Nigeria. It’s a very diverse crowd of people who are interested in making this happen and that growth has happened in the last 18 months which is amazing.
PERSEPHONE Like, so it started like 18 months ago?
JD No, he’s been involved in the therapy side since 1977, I believe. Hawk, John, and Danielle got together and put together RPG Research and they filed as a nonprofit in 2016, I think. So, RPG Research has been an official non-profit since 2016, but Hawk has been doing this since the mid-80s. I’m really hoping that we get more attendance at the trainings because right now it’s been three to four people including the coordinators in all the trainings that I’ve done. And it’s really difficult. For one of the trainings, you play Neverwinter night’s expanded edition and there’s all kinds of different things you can do with it. One of them is running the DM Client which is, basically, you’re an invisible player that provides rewards or consequences to the other players as they go through the module you’ve created or that’s already been created. And this is all of it is based on teaching you how to make decisions and how to help players move forward in their game. It’s a way of playing D&D electronically because Neverwinter Nights is actually based on second edition rules. So, it’s all actual Dungeons and Dragons, just on a computer and a whole bunch of people can play it. And the idea with the training is to get a whole bunch of people together on the server and they pass the responsibility around and lead through different parts of the adventure. We’ve barely been able to get two people together during the winter and I’m hoping this summer, that’s gonna change and we can get more robust training.
PERSEPHONE Sounds like you might need even more people to join in.
JD Absolutely!
PERSEPHONE And again for people at home, if they are interested in joining, how would they go about doing that?
JD Go to rpgresearch.com and at the top of the website you’ll see a row of links you can click. One is volunteering and you can click on that link and it’ll give you a list of all the jobs that are there, and there’s paid jobs there as well if you want to move to Spokane.
ELENI Something I was curious about: do you think it’s like an advertising issue as to like why there’s only just a handful of people involved? Or just, you know, we are in the middle of an almost two year long pandemic. Why do you personally think it’s only just a handful of people that are currently involved with this? Because like you said, there were only, like, two to four people at a time. I was just curious if you had any personal theories as to why that was?
JD I agree with Hawk’s comment on it. He’s been doing this for years and what he has seen is, during spring summer fall they have a swell of volunteers who get involved and do things, and then over the holiday break you know Thanksgiving and Christmas they fall off because they’re all doing things with family. So, you know, that makes a lot of sense. It kind of goes dormant and there’s a few dedicated people who stick to it, and a few new people, but not usually a lot. I was kind of an apparently unusual person getting on board during the winter session and it was really more focused because there were fewer of us and we were able to be more involved with the questions and the training. It goes through a cycle like a lot of other volunteering. Locally, I volunteer for DNACA and Community Concert and we don’t plan events during that three-month time period for the most part. The latest we’ll really go is November and then we’ll skip through to February because there’s so many other things going on. I also do Community Concert and you know there’s so many things going on during the winter that people are really too compressed to do something else.
PERSEPHONE Understandable! Yeah, is there anything else that we’ve not asked that you would like to make sure gets said?
JD They’re developing a brain computer interface for allowing people who are complete shut-ins, you know, paralyzed from the neck down to be able to do yes no questions to do a computer game and participate in a tabletop role-playing type games like Neverwinter Nights. And this is something that Hawk has already done. He’s used a cheaper interface to get characters to move in Neverwinter Nights just by thinking about it. Yeah, so he and a group of researchers are putting together a computer game based entirely on the brain computer interface to help these people who are literally laying in a bed staring at the ceiling and doing nothing but have full cognition. They’re conscious and they’re aware, but they can’t do anything so they’re trying to develop this so that they can do something. They have research going on about this subject constantly. On how tabletop RPGs, LARPing, electronic role-playing games, and hybrid role-playing games help people. So this is a constant body of knowledge that’s expanded and is constantly expanding and he knows more about all of that than I do. They have community outreach programs, they’ve got the bus, they’ve got just so many different things happening!
PERSEPHONE Awesome! Thank you so much for talking to us. For Redwood Voice, I’m Persephone Rose.
ELENI And I’m Eleni.
If you’re interested in this work, you can find everything you need about them on their website, or even go straight to their volunteering section.
Telling the untold stories of Del Norte and Tribal Lands through amplified youth voices.
