Alamo 4-H Camp receives wildfire and flood mitigation from veteran-led volunteers

The University of Nevada, Reno (UNR) has a small satellite campus in Alamo, where the 4-H National Youth Development Program manages a camp for underprivileged youth from across the region. 

“Children who depend on SNAP, low-income families,” said Hans Weding, a UNR dietician and chef at the Alamo 4-H campus. “We’re all about the kids.” Operated by the University of Nevada, Reno Extension in collaboration with Clark and Lincoln counties, Nevada 4-H Alamo Camp is an essential resource for young people without access to nature or mentorship.  

Nestled in the Pahranagat Valley between blue lakes and green pastures, crested by mountain ridges and surrounded by ranches and scout camps, the camp provides programs designed to help students develop useful life skills and nurture their relationship with nature. Pahranagat Valley’s relationship with nature, though, can be fraught with challenges from lightning-caused wildfires as well as flash floods. 

Volunteers from Team Rubicon, a veteran-led nonprofit humanitarian organization, spent time in Alamo helping protect the Nevada 4-H Alamo Camp from the dangers of wildland fire and floods. Volunteers, known as Greyshirts, perform mitigation operations year-round to ease the risks of wildfires and floods to vulnerable communities nationwide, including several recent operations in Arizona, Utah, New Mexico and California. This Team Rubicon operation is possible because of the critical support from the Alamo community, the 4-H organization and network and the 4-H Agricultural Extension with the University of Nevada, Reno.  

The 4-H camp in Alamo is a critical resource for the children and teenagers of the community but is also regularly utilized by disadvantaged urban youth from Las Vegas. The camp sustained damage from past flooding, which created a buildup of debris, creating hazardous conditions for the camp participants. This operation is to help protect the camp, the youth who depend on it and the Alamo community at large. 

“We are all here as volunteers,” said Ian Massy, Nevada resident and Team Rubicon’s incident commander in Alamo. “Greyshirts are built to serve. Camp Alamo needed help, and that’s all any of us needed to hear to sign.” 

Sergio Laneres is an Alamo resident who performs maintenance, cooks and “does a little bit of everything” at Nevada 4-H Alamo Camp. He says the work the Greyshirts did was necessary and important. 

“The time they put in, that means a lot. If they weren’t here, this work wouldn’t have gotten done.” 

About two dozen volunteer Greyshirts have traveled from all around the region to help Nevada Alamo 4-H Camp and the community of Alamo be more resilient against future fires and floods. 

This year, Team Rubicon has already completed 64 operations across the country and recently deployed to: 

• Burnet County, Texas (flood recovery) 
• Dona Ana County, New Mexico (flood response) 
• Milwaukee County, Wisconsin (severe storm response) 
• Los Angeles County, California (wildfire recovery) 

From fire mitigation to natural disasters and crisis response, Team Rubicon responded to 98 disasters across North America last year. As hurricane and tornado season continues, the team is ever reliant on its 200,000 volunteers to respond to where they are most desperately needed. 

Team Rubicon can serve communities across the nation because our Greyshirt volunteers live in every state, plus Puerto Rico and Guam, including over 1,200 here in Nevada. To support our Greyshirts and Team Rubicon’s humanitarian mission, visit www.teamrubiconusa.org to donate, volunteer and find more information.