Siskiyou Family Expo brings baby supplies, support services to Yreka families

Baby supplies, car seat safety help and early-childhood referrals landed under one roof at the Siskiyou Family YMCA, where the first annual Siskiyou Family Expo and Community Baby Shower gave Yreka families a free, all-in-one stop on May 2. The event ran from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at 350 N. Foothill Drive and was open to all families.

The Siskiyou Community Resource Collaborative organized the expo as a way to put organizations and service providers in the same room, so parents could talk face-to-face with programs without bouncing between offices or waiting on separate appointments. That setup mattered as much as the baby-shower branding: the event worked as a practical entry point into the county’s family-support system, not just a giveaway.

Public Health’s Home Visiting Program was among the key participants, offering car seat safety and installation information. Other named partners included Siskiyou Early Head Start, Boys & Girls Club and S.M.A.R.T., giving the expo a mix of safety, early learning, youth support and family resources. A separate event listing added the family-friendly extras that helped broaden the draw: bounce houses, a rock wall, prizes and local vendors.

The Collaborative has the kind of structure that makes this format work. It is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit formed when six family and community resource centers unified under one umbrella, and state source material says its network now includes seven family resource centers serving rural and isolated communities in Yreka, Scott Valley, Montague, McCloud, Weed, Mount Shasta and Dunsmuir. In a county as spread out as Siskiyou, that kind of centralized outreach is more than convenient. It cuts down on travel and makes the first conversation with a provider easier to start.

That need is amplified by the county’s numbers. Siskiyou County’s 2025 population estimate was 42,013, with 4.2% of residents under age 5, and Kidsdata’s 2025 profile listed 8,158 residents ages 0-17. For a rural county with families scattered across long distances, a single event that combines celebration with direct access to help functions as local infrastructure.

The county’s public health system already leans in that direction. Siskiyou County Public Health says its Home Visiting Program offers two no-cost, voluntary Healthy Families America home visiting programs, along with maternal and child health services that include nutrition and breastfeeding education, parenting education and support for families with children who have special health care needs. County resource material says the home-visiting program can serve families for up to three years.

That broader early-childhood network has been building for years. First 5 Siskiyou recently marked its 25th anniversary and said it has invested more than $15 million over 25 years in early childhood education, intervention, literacy and family support. Against that backdrop, the Family Expo and Community Baby Shower fit neatly into Siskiyou County’s larger effort to make support visible, local and easy to reach.