Help Chicken Live His Last Days with Dignity

David Nesmith - AKA ‘Chicken’ - entered hospice care March 21, 2025, and passed away peacefully with his family late afternoon March 26th. This incredible human being had lived a life so full of joy with nature and with other people before was sidelined by a stroke in 2012. This GoFundMe will now be devoted to the family's residual costs of care, and of memorials to Chicken (more info soon).

Chicken worked his entire life on the mission of protecting this planet (Conservation Director, San Francisco Bay Chapter Sierra Club) and protecting our waters, founding the Environmental Water Caucus in 1991.

He was also completely devoted to engaging people with nature - mostly on whitewater rafting trips in California and all over the west, particularly his beloved Green River. He delighted in introducing people to the joys of wilderness travel and river running - he was a key volunteer with the Friends of the River guides school and the Sierra Club's Inner City Outings program, (ICO - now Inspiring Connections Outdoors) to ensure that young people who might never have been in the outdoors got that transformational experience.

Chicken also gave strong support to the development of the Bishop O’Dowd High School Living Lab, a 4 acre native habitat site that serves as nationally recognized model for environmental education, co-founded by his partner, Annie Prutzman.

He has lived lightly in this world, existing happily on a small non-profit sized salary, occasionally splurging only on river gear to support the trips he took so many people on.

We've needed to raise these funds to handle the costs of his care and other related expenses, and to assure his next step into life finishes as graceful as his life up til now.

Whatever you can give will go directly and entirely to the costs of his care. Thank you so very much for joining his family, and ensuring that he gets the end of life transition he so deserves.

For those of you who've already contributed to Chicken's support, we thank you so much.