South Fork Arts and Recreation (SoFAR), founded in 2007, is a 501(c)3 non-profit. Our mission:
SoFAR’s mission is to inspire and teach the arts and music, support recreational opportunities, and promote community development, culture, and involvement associated with the Coloma, Lotus and surrounding region
SoFAR originally started in 2007 as American River Music (ARM) in order to produce and host the American River Music Festival. ARM was started as a non-profit to promote the enjoyment, appreciation, and learning of music in the County of El Dorado County, California. After ten years of running music events and educational programs in the area, we have expanded the scope of ARM to include recreation, arts, and community involvement. Due to that expansion, we changed the name to South Fork Arts and Recreation (SoFAR) and updated our organizational structure and membership program to reflect those changes.
We continue to promote and develop music and fundraising events in the Coloma and Lotus river valley and have added additional public events such as festivals and educational workshops. Additionally, we will continue to work with community groups, government agencies, and regional stakeholders to support various programs such as our private boater shuttle program in order to reduce traffic and air pollutants, annual river clean-ups, and a community art program to bring creative art of all kinds to the river valley. We also sponsor and support other non-profit groups in town that have a wide array of community services and programs such as American River Conservancy, Gold Trail Grange, Coloma Lotus Business Council, and American Whitewater.
Our longer-term goals are to continue to promote art and music, recreational programs, and community development activities throughout the year with various public events and workshops, and add to that educational workshops for community members and other special populations We are always working to support community members and volunteers that have projects or programs that they would like to pursue and need support and help to make them come to fruition.