By Dhyana Levey, Bay Nature
You might remember the guy. A year ago at this time, Alden Olmsted was on a mission. Seventy California state parks were slated for closure, and like many parks advocates, he sprang to action — but he took it grassroots, one dollar at a time.
At his peak, the filmmaker’s “bucket list” amounted to 63 plastic donation buckets placed in cafes near state parks throughout Central and Northern California. Just give a dollar, the signs on his buckets asked, to save the parks from a devastating $22 million in state budget cuts.
Nonprofits and local businesses embraced his grassroots campaign, and his effort netted $38,000. But then Olmsted heard the news: The California Department of Parks and Recreation had been sitting on a hidden surplus of $54 million.
Olmsted pulled his buckets.
Read the complete story at Bay Nature.