Strength & Sustainability

Helping the Bay Chapter engage young people

Helmut Kapczynski is another of the major donors who have contributed to the Bay Chapter's Strength & Sustainability major-gifts campaign. The goal of Strength & Sustainability is to expand the Chapter's capacity to organize strong and effective environmental campaigns across the entire Bay Area. In the following article Helmut tells how he had the good fortune to discover the inspiration of the wilderness and how he is working through the Sierra Club Bay Chapter to pass this inspiration on to future generations.

I grew up in Berlin, a city that was completely destroyed in World War II. Here I encountered the aftermath of war as the ultimate environmental disaster. This perspective permanently impacted my life and shaped my view of the world around me.

In 1971 I moved to the U.S. and soon visited my first national park, Kings Canyon. Seeing the wilderness was life-changing. The awe-inspiring beauty was like nothing I had seen or felt before, for Europe has no remaining wilderness.

I've returned to the Sierra Nevada, sometimes with my kids in tow, for numerous backpacking and hiking trips over the past 35 years. As I learned about each place we visited, I learned about John Muir's role as a preservationist and founder of the Sierra Club, and about the Club's role in defending the wilderness.

I joined the Club, because I wanted to make sure my kids could keep returning to the wilderness for their whole lives. Through backpacking trips alone, the Sierra Club has inspired generation after generation to feel the awe that comes only from the stunning grandeur of nature - and to carry on Muir's legacy.

Here in the Bay Area, we're privileged to live in one of the greenest, most spectacularly beautiful places in the world. There's important, precedent-setting work to be done right here: completion of the Eastshore State Park, protecting the Coyote Hills in Fremont from development, switching to solar and alternative-energy programs.

Last fall Bill Walsh, development director for the Sierra Club's local Bay Chapter, asked me to support the Chapter's new Strength & Sustainability program. In consideration of all that is at stake for the environment, along with the Club's proven ability over time to preserve and protect the wilderness, I said yes. By giving to this program, I contribute toward sustaining the work that John Muir started over 100 years ago.

My generation, the activist generation that grew up in the '60s, is getting on in years, as much as we may want to ignore it. While many of us still are blessed with good health and are still actively standing up for what we believe in, we are starting to think ahead.

The most important challenge now is to get young people engaged. We need to ensure that the younger generation will take up the charge of defending the wilderness and ensuring the sustainability of the environment. Often the best way to inspire young people is through concrete experience. Wilderness is the most powerful vehicle for inspiring them to develop their awareness and passion for the environment. We need to make sure that young people get the opportunity to experience wilderness and to be equipped with training and tools to become environmental stewards. Part of this effort has to be to get young people involved as the up-and-coming leaders in the Sierra Club.

The Bay Chapter has been bringing in young people to work with its staff as local Chapter organizers. I want to make sure that the Chapter has the resources to institutionalize this internship program. The Sierra Club is among the best places for young people to learn that it really does make a difference when you go out on the line for something you believe in. (See article below for information on Chapter and Club internships.)

Just think if John Muir had not fought to defend wilderness. Where would we be today? Now think how you can do your part to carry on that spirit for the next 100 years. One way for sure is to join me in supporting the local Bay Chapter to train the next generation of environmental leaders. There may be a John Muir among them.

To make a contribution or to find out more about how to support the San Francisco Bay Chapter of the Sierra Club, please contact development director or call (510) 848-0800, ext. 309