Old Mill Students Raise Money for Conservation International

A visit to the Academy of Sciences in San Francisco serves up loads of fodder to inspire young minds.

But for Stone Shepard and his friend Cal Deem, a video Shepard’s parents bought after their family’s recent Academy visit proved surprisingly provocative – and enough to propel the duo into action.

Instead of a light look at birds and wildlife of the rainforest, the video instead chronicled deforestation and its devastating impact on the planet. Shepard and Deem, both third graders, felt compelled to do something about what they’d seen.

Shepard and Deem first went to door to door and raised nearly $100. They then set up a table downtown for two days, telling passers-by about the importance of the rainforest on global environmental stability and asking for donations. They raised more than $400, enough to save 27 acres of rainforest through Conservational International’s Protect an Acre program.

The boys made a presentation to their class and hope to inspire more kids to care about the rainforest and become activists.

In January, the San Francisco representative of Conservation International is set to attend a meeting of the Old Mill Student Council, on which Shepard is the third grade representative.

“This doesn’t appear to be a passing fancy, but the beginning of a lifelong understanding of land stewardship,” wrote Stone’s father Tom Shepard in a blog post for Conservation International.