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.
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