The Garden City Bird Sanctuary is offering opportunities for student and independent film-makers to create documentaries. The "Bird Sanctuary" is an innovative program founded in 1995 to create a flourishing community nature preserve from a 9-acre Nassau County storm water basin (a sump). The vision statement adopted by the Garden City based community group was simply "to establish a local greenspace for the demonstration of environmental stewardship through education and volunteer community services." Since the initial volunteer led site clean-up in 1995, over 8,000 people have been active in this effort to improve the environment and educate residents on the meaning of environmental stewardship in the community.

There is a need to visually document some of the events, programs, and landscaping at the Bird Sanctuary. Short 5-10 minute documentaries will be used at public meetings to provide armchair tours of the site, show other volunteers providing community service, studies of research and unusual aspects of nature and wildlife (such as the Italian lizard colony) on Long Island, and even festivals and fundraising events to interview participants on their concerns with the environment. A longer video may be considered to document the changes at the site over the seasons.

There is no pay for these projects. All work at the Bird Sanctuary is provided by volunteer community service. A film-fest will be scheduled at the Garden City Public Library to 'premiere' completed films in 2010. All films are required to be completed and reproduced on DVD.

Background information on the Garden City Bird Sanctuary can be found on the Internet at www.gcbirdsanctuary.org (or try a google search!)

Contact Rob Alvey, President, at (516) 326-1720 or via e-mail at gcbirdsanctuary@gmail.com