Nye Communities Coalition seeks volunteer nominations for HOPE Rises awards

More than 450 volunteers helped keep the 2025 Remote Area Medical clinic running in Pahrump, and NyE Communities Coalition is now asking residents to name the people and groups whose unpaid work makes that kind of service possible. The coalition’s HOPE Rises Volunteer Recognition Luncheon is set for Saturday, May 16, at Nevada Treasure’s Convention Center, following an April 15 nomination deadline.

The awards program has quickly become one of the clearest public acknowledgments of the hidden civic workforce that holds up life in Pahrump and surrounding Nye County communities. The coalition said the recognition effort began in 2024 as Hope Floats, continued in 2025 as Growing HOPE and is now carried into 2026 as HOPE Rises. Behind the name changes is the same idea: volunteer labor fills gaps that government agencies and formal services often cannot cover on their own.

NyE Communities Coalition describes itself as a Nevada nonprofit 501(c)(3) serving Nye, Esmeralda and Lincoln counties. Its mission is to grow healthy organizations, people and environments, or HOPE, by bringing together individuals, organizations and agencies to expand services and opportunities. In a rural region where one clinic, one nonprofit or one outreach event can depend on dozens of unpaid hands, that mission has direct public health and community consequences.

The award categories show how broad that work is. This year’s honors include Community Champion, Youth Community Champion, Hope Rocks, Desert Sage, Paws and Claws Guardian, Recruitment Catalyst, Community Hero, Steadfast Service and Faith in Action. The lineup reaches beyond traditional volunteerism to recognize people working in animal advocacy, environmental efforts, volunteer recruitment, first-response support and faith-based service. It is the kind of labor that keeps food drives moving, clinic tables staffed and neighborhood programs alive.

The coalition has used the annual luncheon to highlight that scale before. Its 2025 Growing HOPE Awards featured 12 categories and honored 12 individuals and organizations at the Valley Electric Conference Center on May 17, 2025. One honoree, Linda Wright-Smith, had her Hope Rocks Award accepted by Michelle Caird while Wright-Smith was away on her honeymoon. Earlier, the inaugural Hope Floats celebration was held May 4, 2024, at the NyECC Activities Center on E. Wilson Road in Pahrump, where CEO Stacy Smith said the coalition intended the event to become an annual tradition.

That tradition now lands in a county where volunteer labor is not symbolic, it is structural. NyECC’s own RAM clinic numbers show the scale: more than 450 volunteers and an estimated labor value of $163,440 in one year alone. If those people step back, the loss reaches far beyond one banquet. It touches health access, youth programs and the nonprofit backbone that has helped support Pahrump for more than two decades.