Students collect stamps to save prairies

The Chicago Daily Southtown reports a local student group has been collecting canceled commemorative stamps, foreign stamps and postcards which are turned over to The Audubon Society.

The Audubon Society then sells the stamps and uses the money for preservation. Illinois has lost nearly all of its original prairie and 90 percent of its original wetlands, both of which are vital for the survival of certain species, according to the society.

Kay MacNeil, who sends postcards to her grandson with the commemorative Star Wars stamps, as a way to help protect the environment and score some points, is quoted in the article as saying, "We live in the Prairie State, yet there is scarcely 1 percent of the original prairie left in the Prairie State."

Since the program was created in 1984 it has generated more than $35,000.

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Shown above is the 2001 Great Plains Prairie minature sheet.