Happy 4th of July!

Children explore meadow planting.

Children explore meadow planting.

Hello all! We are on the journey and are open to your suggestions of Habitat Heroes. We shoot in Ohio over the holiday and then on to film in Wisconsin for the next week. One program we visit is Earth Partnership for Schools. Teachers engage in week long institutes:
“We invite teachers to participate in a one-week summer Earth Partnership Institute for graduate credit. You will learn how to use the process of ecological restoration as a broad environmental context for teaching and learning about your local natural and cultural communities. The process of habitat restoration is an exciting real-life project that extends through the K–12 curriculum and beyond, and includes many disciplines such as science, math, social studies, language arts, and related arts.”
Effectively teaching our children about the natural world will help grow future stewards and a new army of Habitat Heroes! Looking forward to the next days and the summer institute!

We need your help to make this film. Please DONATE!

Westward Bound

We are headed to the mid-west! I am very excited AND happy for the great response yesterday to the fundraising campaign. We need $130,000 for production and we have 60 days to get there. That means every day we need to raise about $2,200. Guess what? You guys stepped up yesterday with exactly $2200! Keep up the support.

Speaking of supporters, I had a nice online chat last night with Betsy, a fellow native plant lover. Here is some of what Betsy had to say:

My husband and I created mini meadows and native plant gardens in our yard several years ago – (mostly inspired by Tallamy’s work) – but also just inspired by childhood in Vermont. and I so related to Tallamy’s story of the frogs! GREAT story! I found my own way to the love of meadows – through the bees. In 2007 I fell in love with the bees- and we got rid of grass and my husband and I planted gardens – and now our yard is full of wonderful native plants and wildlife.  Interesting timing (during our chat) we JUST this minute saw a hummingbird out by the basketball hoop!  Before we transformed the yard we never saw hummingbirds or bees. What a wondrous miracle it all is. I never get tired of watching all the action in the yard!!! Anyway – best wishes on the film – and can’t wait to see it! Hope you have safe and wonderful travels. I just am so happy that you are using your filmmaking gift to help create meadows and habitat for wildlife!!!

Now, I call Betsy, a Habitat Hero! The rest of the night, I pictured her hummingbird, in her bountiful garden!  On, to our mid-west Habitat Heroes.

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Hometown Habitat Launch!

I don’t know about you, but I spent my winter and spring months dreaming about and working on my next film project. I’m a story teller, so this was a pleasant pursuit!

As I go around the country talking about changing our land care practices, reducing lawn in favor of native plants, my take away impression is, people are just not informed. It’s a matter of education, of inspiration and basic know how.

As a filmmaker of nearly 40 years, I decided to do what I do, tell a story. An important story. This is the inspirational story of people, towns, churches, organizations, and communities who are stepping up, taking the lead, being the environmental voices we need to heal the planet. You might call them Habitat Heroes!  Let their stories unfold. We begin the journey. Join us!

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