Sonoma County has a fantastic resource that everyone should know about. Since 2014, Creative Sonoma, a division within the county’s Economic Development Collaborative, has been proving that the arts can be a powerful tool for community building, personal growth, and economic resilience. Creative Sonoma’s friendly staff administers grants, supports professional development initiatives, and coordinates arts education programs. For example, after the 2017 Tubbs wildfire ravaged Santa Rosa, Creative Sonoma provided artists with grants to help them cope with the economic disruption to their livelihoods. They also funded an artist-in-residence program, sending artists to schools to provide trauma-informed creative experiences to help youth process their emotions and emerge from the crisis with more resilience.