Some day, the Skin Cancer Awareness Foundation may need a bricks-and-mortar headquarters, but for now, a laptop on the kitchen table at the home of Bill and Rocky Barth is just fine.
"I get 400 e-mails a day," said founder Bill Barth. "The Internet is a wonderful thing. It can make you look big or small. You have credibility."
From their home on Billy's Road, Barth is able to oversee the nonprofit he started in 2002, and carefully tends an experimental blueberry patch he hopes will finance the work of the foundation.
He was inspired to create the Skin Cancer Awareness Foundation after he heard a coach tell his softball-playing grandchildren in Sacramento that power drinks were more important than sunscreen.
Barth said too many acquaintances have suffered from overexposure to sun, including close friend Al Blythe who died of cancer a year ago.
"Al was my best friend," Barth said. "You have to have a tragedy like that to make you think what it's all about."
The biggest mistake people make is thinking they're immune to the sun.
"That's why we try to train kids and their parents early," Barth said. "You never know what's going to happen 20, 20, 40 years down the road if you've exposed your skin to too much sun."
Barth has three projects in the works: Shade Across America, a UV warning signal that looks like a traffic light, and a blueberry patch.
Shade Across America helps schools raise money to provide shade structures over playgrounds.
He also provides educational material including coloring books for children in kindergarten through eighth grade.
Barth dreamed up the $2,200 UV meter that was developed in Philadelphia.
He said seven countries are interested in installing them on beaches.
The warning signal has five alert levels from green that indicates it's safe to be outdoors with proper sun protection such as hat and sunscreen to purple that indicates the ultraviolet index is so high, people should stay indoors.
The Barths installed a meter in their yard and have sold one to the Knights of Columbus in Gardnerville in memory of Al Blythe.
It's the lovingly cultivated blueberries that Barth sees as the financial future of the foundation in addition to providing an ongoing supply of what some say is a cancer-fighting superfood.
"There's my babies," he said as he pointed out a small patch of 14 plants, one of which is producing budding berries.
"Every day I come out here, I go, 'Wow,'" he said. "We put them through every environment you can think of."
He and his wife even named their 10-acre spread Bella Vista Blueberry Patch.
Barth is prepared to make room for 700 plants by next spring. If they thrive, he wants to grow 7,000 more.
"It's been very difficult learning how to grow them," he said. "We had 15 planted two years ago and lost nine to a bad freeze. I called everybody I knew and we changed the planting cycle."
He's already invested $40,000 in getting the right soil and setting up an irrigation system.
"Our main goal is to make sure these grow, so they will always support the foundation," Barth said.
He envisions a "pick-your-own" patch for families and has made arrangements with a processor to can the berries.
After six years, each bush produces 10 pounds of berries, he said, and the plants last for decades.
"It would be the first in Nevada," he said.
Beyond the blueberries, UV monitors and sun shades, Barth just wants people to be aware.
"We're not doctors. We're not scientists," he said. "We can't tell people what to do. All we can do is raise people's awareness."
