Small but mighty Rohnert Park nonprofit uses money from recycled goods to help schools in Mexico

Sean Place doesn’t have much down time.

When he isn’t working full time at Safari West, he’s volunteering on his days off or he’s dedicating time before or after work to make a difference for impoverished schoolchildren in Mexico.

The Rohnert Park resident is the tireless founder of Quetzal Ecology, a grassroots organization that assists six schools in the rural, rainforest village of San Miguel Tzinacapan and neighboring Cuetzalan in the state of Puebla. By recycling discarded goods, Place and his supporters raise money for much-needed school projects and supplies.

At Safari West, Place “initiated an enormous recycling endeavor,” said Nancy Lang, who, with her husband Peter Lang, established the Santa Rosa wildlife preserve and safari park in the late 1980s in the foothills of the Mayacamas Mountains.

“Sean is impassioned about providing critically needed supplies to the students and the community of San Miguel,” she said. “On his days off, we often see Sean escorting potential donors on tours of Safari West while explaining how he has turned recycling at our park into computers and printers for a community in need.”

Place, a maintenance worker at Safari West, increased the number of recycling bins – to about 20 – to help encourage the park’s thousands of annual visitors to recycle beverage cans and bottles, rather than toss them into garbage cans. That effort alone significantly reduced the park’s landfill waste.

He credits the Langs with wholeheartedly supporting the recycling project. He said it was their suggestion to utilize the park’s recyclable materials to benefit Quetzal Ecology.

Helping the village’s schoolchildren

Working to help the environment through recycling is a natural mix for Safari West and Quetzal Ecology. Not only are Mexican villagers and schoolchildren in the mountainous region benefiting from monies raised through their recycling efforts, but Quetzal Ecology is helping the environment and spreading a message of conservation both locally and in San Miguel Tzinacapan, and its greater municipality of Cuetzalan del Progreso.

In a Quetzal Ecology YouTube video, Place sums up the efforts in one sentence: “Recycling makes a difference.”

By recycling California Redemption Value (CRV) beverage cans, bottles, old car batteries, aluminum tire rims, electrical wiring from old appliances and other materials, Place and his small but dedicated team of volunteers fund everything from basic school supplies to educational programming on a local radio station to construction expenses for a high school cafeteria. So far, they’ve raised more than half of the $10,000 earmarked for the cafeteria, which also will serve as a community gathering place.

“It’s going to be a gift for the community,” he said.

Many students in the isolated town travel to school “on a pickup truck with benches and a plastic tarp (overhead),” Place said.

One elementary school doubles as a mechanic’s garage on weekends. A cobblestone walkway still used in the Indigenous Nahuat community dates to Aztec times. And three schools operate without electricity.

Students, though, are undeterred by the conditions at the schools. Students from preschool through high school receive help and donations from Quetzal Ecology.

“The kids are super intelligent,” Place said. “It doesn’t faze them, even in schools without electricity.”

Tubbs Fire settlement gets nonprofit off the ground

Place began fundraising several years before establishing Quetzal Ecology as a nonprofit in 2020.

“The same stuff I’m doing now, I was doing before I was a nonprofit,” he said. “And we’re still growing.”

He used some of the funds he received through a settlement from the Tubbs Fire to pay legal fees to secure Quetzal Ecology as a bona fide nonprofit organization.

“It’s amazing what documentation can do,” said Place, whose nonprofit has raised about $15,000 to date.

He and his children, Ashley, 23, and Ethan, 19, lost their rental home, the family dog, Ernest, and all they owned in the catastrophic wildfires of 2017 that roared through their Mark West Springs neighborhood in Santa Rosa.

“It’s not just stuff we lost, it’s lives being changed,” Place said. He and his children moved in with relatives, displaced but grateful for the shelter and empathy they received.

Creating Quetzal Ecology “became my therapy,” he said. “It takes my mind away.”

The nonprofit evolved when he was in a relationship with a teacher from Mexico, a woman he met at a day camp in Santa Rosa where he was volunteering. After discovering the conditions in her village – and the wide-scale need for help – he stepped into action. Although the couple is no longer together, Place remains dedicated to helping the community.

“Have you ever visited a place and fallen in love with it?” he asked. “That’s what it was like.” The people – teachers, students, villagers – “made it very clear” he was welcome and appreciated, he said.

“It’s a matter of the people loving him, too,” said daughter Ashley, a senior at Sonoma State University and the Quetzal Ecology board of directors secretary. “He’s humble. He won’t ever say how much work he does.”

Donating panchos, books, school supplies

The family has a long history of dedication to community service.

“Ever since I was little he’s taught me how to help people in need,” Ashley said of her father, who serves as the nonprofit’s president. “He spends at least an hour after work each day sorting and working on recycling projects, and dedicates about five hours on each of his two days off, including driving to recycling centers to turn in materials for cash.”

He also leads donation drives and sets up informational tables outside local businesses, including several Sonoma County Latino businesses. A book drive for the community library in San Miguel Tzinacapan brought in 187 new books in Spanish, including the popular Harry Potter series. Place said the kids were very excited.

He also provided hundreds of rain ponchos to the village, courtesy of discounted pricing through Safari West. He was motivated to help after seeing a child wearing a garbage bag for protection from inclement weather.

Place even connected with a local restaurateur, who funded uniforms for a girls soccer team. He’s approached local stores and businesses to secure donations of everything from pencils, crayons and notebooks to toothbrushes and toothpaste, clothing, eyeglasses and musical instruments – anything to fill a need.

A donation of chalk “was like gold to them,” Place said.

He even made a spontaneous (and successful) solicitation stop one day while driving past an auto dealership “that had Mexican flags out.” Place doesn’t hesitate to provide opportunities for others to help.

His daughter jokes that, “Dad always has his business card on him.” He acknowledges that around Rohnert Park, “I’m known.”

Place – who said he can get by with limited Spanish — is currently enrolled in a Spanish class to help expand his skills. He travels to Mexico about twice each year to work directly with school officials and villagers, and sends boxes of supplies a few times a year. He maintains updates on the Quetzal Ecology website and Facebook page. His son Ethan, as well as Ashley’s fiancé, Kobe Weinstein, shoot videos and update the nonprofit’s website.

With the exception of treasurer Kimberly Robertson, other Quetzal Ecology board members are part of the San Miguel Tzinacapan community. Teacher Cinthia Anayely Carreon Mora has served on the board several years and is grateful for Quetzal Ecology and its supporters.

Support goes beyond school walls

The nonprofit not only helps schools, it supports cultural programs like community mural projects. Quetzal Ecology also provided aid for Hurricane Grace relief and the coronavirus pandemic while continuing to emphasize the importance of caring for the environment. In February, community members, students and Quetzal Ecology volunteers planted 250 trees in Cuetzalan to improve vegetation in the region.

“Seeing the results obtained motivates us to continue working for the good of each one of the people who are benefited by (Quetzal Ecology),” Mora wrote in Spanish in an email.

Although the needs are significant, she said, Place provides a sense of hope and accomplishment and brings people together to help.

“Thanks to Sean we can believe that there is no difference between nationalities when a fighting heart for noble causes is shared, that the union overcomes any border and that he has earned the gratitude and respect of the indigenous communities,” Mora wrote.

Place said villagers care deeply about one another, the land, and preserving their history and traditions.

He said there are many people and businesses that support Quetzal Ecology, which is named for the quetzal bird that’s sacred in indigenous Mexican mythology. The nonprofit’s logo features the bird in a design created by a young artist who graduated high school in San Miguel Tzinacapan.

Place is ingenious in finding unique ways to help. Rather than sell the 1971 Volkswagen Bug he’d owned for years, he traded it to a Rohnert Park family with little cash. They, and their extended family, vowed to give Place their recycled goods on an ongoing basis as payment.

Every effort makes a difference, he said, whether it’s a cash donation, school supplies or materials for recycling.

He’s pushed through the challenges and impacts of the Sonoma County wildfires, the coronavirus pandemic and the hurricane that hit the state of Puebla.

“I put a lot of my time and energy into this thing,” he said.

The gratitude in Mexico is beyond measure.

“They’re so appreciative for what little they have,” Place said. “They’re over the moon when they get new things.”

Looking ahead, Place and his small team hope to raise the additional monies needed for the high school cafeteria throughout 2023. They will continue to respond to school and community needs as they are identified. They will also continue to donate $100 every month to a San Miguel Tzinacapan radio station for educational programming that benefits people in the region.