KCDC Time Sheet (MS Excel)
KCDC PurchaseOrder (MS Excel)
KCDC Travel Advance (MS Excel)
Request for leave (MS Excel)

      The Administration for Native Americans (ANA) recently awarded a two-year Social and Economic Development Strategies (SEDS) grant totaling $924,178 to the Karuk Community Development Corporation (KCDC) to build the Karuk Tribe’s capacity to prevent and fight wildland fires.  The envisioned Karuk Wildland Fire Prevention & Suppression Workforce Development Project not only will prepare Tribal members for culturally appropriate, economically viable, and environmentally sustainable employment and contracting opportunities within the Karuk Ancestral Territory, but also will protect the health and safety of the 3,000-plus people who live along the Klamath, Scott, and Salmon Rivers. 
      The new workforce development project will attract workers of all ages whose aptitudes and interests are aligned with the Tribe’s traditional land stewardship practices—Tribal and other community members who enjoy outdoor, physical labor that requires knowledge of the natural environment, as well as the natural and unnatural forces that threaten it.
    Working in partnership with the KCDC, the Tribe’s Department of Natural Resources has developed a forest fuels reduction crew of about 20 members, who also fight fires seasonally under contract with multiple federal agencies. With the recently awarded ANA-SEDS grant, the Karuk Tribe will be uniquely positioned to respond to federal and state contracting opportunities, restoring and preserving ancient land stewardship traditions while exercising its inherent right of self-governance.
        Over the next two years, KCDC-operated Community Computer/Distance Learning Centers will assist some 100 Tribal members in becoming certified as Firefighter I or II.  In addition to offering College of the Siskiyous (COS) courses on-site and via live-feed videoconference to Karuk and other trainees at the Centers in Happy Camp, Orleans, and Yreka, the Karuk Wildland Fire Prevention & Suppression Workforce Development Project will partner with the U.S. Forest Service to provide local training for forest- and fire-related contractors who are required to be certified annually to work in the National Forests. 
      Working in partnership with federal and state agencies—and public school/community college districts—the Karuk Tribe also will assist community members in pursuing forest- and fire-related self-employment as contractors and private entrepreneurs.   Technical assistance and small business financing will be provided to eligible businesses by the Karuk Community Loan Fund (KCLF), a Native CDFI, which also supports private enterprise development in the mid-Klamath River region.  By leveraging and expanding the services provided through the KCDC, its three Distance Learning Centers, the Tribal Employment Rights Office, TANF and Low-Income Assistance Programs, local public schools and community colleges, Karuk Community Loan Fund and a host of other community partners, the Karuk Tribe will retrain/train its members to protect and preserve the beautifully forested mountains and river valleys within the Karuk Aboriginal Territory.
      If you are interested in preparatory training for forest- or fire-related employment or contracting opportunities, contact Emma Lee Johnson or Tai Kim at the Happy Camp Community Computer Center, 530-493-5213, or Bari Talley at the Orleans Community Computer Center, 530-627-3081, or Scott Nelson at the Yreka Computer Center (530) 842-1644 ext 7004.