Homestead kids save the rainforest

By MARY GREENE

GLEN SPEY — Marsha Comstock, co-director of the Homestead School, became inspired in 1990 to begin a project that would protect acreage in the South American rainforest. She had many small hands willing to help. The Homestead kids got to work.

Comstock hooked up with Norman Gershenz, Director of the Center for Ecosystem Survival, based in San Francisco. Homestead student artwork was printed onto notepaper and t-shirts and sold. One year, students focused on a more local bird population, building 500 bluebird houses. The birdhouses were sold locally, and the proceeds donated to saving the rainforest.

Comstock and her students, in collaboration with the center, have raised more than $45,000 in 11 years to purchase vital rainforest acreage in Belize, Costa Rica and Guatemala. This past year, the school raised $5,500.

Of the collaboration, Gershenz said, “I want to connect… children to that visceral sensation of knowing the value of wildlife and wild places in our lives…[The $5,500 raised in 2000] will be used immediately to purchase critical habitat in the Rincon.”

Comstock, an accomplished potter and painter, also regularly donates proceeds from sales of her artwork to the project. “I didn’t think one person could make a difference,” she said. “But I’ve learned that one person can.”

For more information, call the Homestead School at 845/ 856-6359 or the Center for Ecosystem Survival at 415/338-3393, or write the center at SFSU Department of Biology, 1600 Holloway Ave., San Francisco, CA 94132.