I’ve known Kristina Irvin since the early ’90s, and boy is she a firecracker. She’s got more energy packed into her five-foot frame than anybody I have ever met, and she’s managed to accomplish quite a lot with that energy, including running two businesses and placing consistently high in many ultramarathons (100-mile mountain-trail footraces) over the years. I admire her not only because of her can-do spirit or that she’s been my chiropractor for 17 years, but because of her warmhearted approach to the things we can do as individuals to mitigate the effects of the things we do as a civilization. It is no wonder we’ve been friends since I first became a patient of hers in 1990.

One of Kristina’s recent gestures occurred in late September when she joined me in Port Costa, California, for a fabulous birthday dinner. Enclosed within a birthday card she handed me was a signed check for $50 made out to nobody; her stipulation being that I make a donation to whatever cause I deemed appropriate.

I was touched by Kristina’s goodwill gesture. Therefore, when I found time over these past two months, I’ve been researching and weighing my choices for where to best direct that fifty bucks.

The options are many. After all, many charities champion great causes and are worthwhile recipients; most make it incredibly easy to donate, whether online or by personal check. I felt it would be prudent to align my sensibilities about giving with my innate passion for the great outdoors and our need to preserve, maintain, and educate. This certainly narrowed my range of selection, but it still left me with a vast number of choices.

I knew, however, that I should give back where I’ve taken; that I should think globally but give locally. After all, I love redwoods, and I walk many miles of local redwood forest trail each year. I know I couldn’t do that if those who came before me hadn’t chosen to volunteer their time and their hard-earned money to establish and maintain those trails, as well as to preserve the land and the wilderness that those trails have delivered us through. So where I could, I examined a number of local non-profit entities in terms of their missions, their educational programs, their record of public/private collaboration, and their budget needs. In the end, I chose to send Kristina’s check to the Sempervirens Fund. That check went out in today’s mail.

The Sempervirens Fund, originally established in 1900 as Sempervirens Club, is not a large organization, but it is California’s oldest land conservancy. It was originally dedicated almost entirely to preserving the majestic coast redwoods, Sequoia sempervirens, and was quite instrumental in establishing Big Basin Redwoods State Park in 1902. Since that time, the Sempervirens Fund has earned quiet but consistent success in saving redwood lands throughout the Santa Cruz Mountains’ San Lorenzo River watershed, sparing more than 21,000 acres from logging. These days, due largely to the efforts of the Sempervirens Fund, an integrated eco-belt is beginning to become a reality in this watershed district, and many public parklands that are currently noncontiguous will soon be connected to each other via new trails.

Since I often walk the trails in and near the San Lorenzo headwaters, it only made sense that I should give to an organization whose efforts have made a profound impact on me. It is now time for me to make an impact of my own.

And yet I think that I’m not doing this for me. Rather, I’m just a bit player in a large ecological theater. Nevertheless, I’ve decided that 1% of the proceeds of all California Wine Hikes tours going forward will be donated to the Sempervirens Fund.

It’s good when good friends make good impacts on you. That’s why they’re good friends. Thanks, Kristina!

~winehiker

This entry was posted on Monday, November 19th, 2007 at 1:54 pm and is filed under grape squeezins, winehiker's trails. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.