Mapping Project Explores Links Between Historic Redlining and Future Climate Vulnerability
WBUR-Boston, March 6th, 2021
This story on Boston’s local NPR station, WBUR discusses Groundwork USA’s Climate Safe Neighborhoods efforts in the Lawrence, MA area. All of the maps discussed in this story were made by Groundwork Milwaukee! Learn more about Climate Safe Neighborhoods below. View full story.
WBUR-Boston, March 6th, 2021
A map animation comparing historical redlining boundaries to current landcover and surface temperature in Haverhill, MA. Groundwork Milwaukee has made maps similar to these for nine cities. In each instance their is a strong relationship between historical practices of segregation and current vulnerability to climate change.
This story on Boston’s local NPR station, WBUR discusses Groundwork USA’s Climate Safe Neighborhoods efforts in the Lawrence, MA area. All of the maps discussed in this story were made by Groundwork Milwaukee! Learn more about Climate Safe Neighborhoods below.
Black History Month Event Honors Pioneers
Sierra Club-Wisconsin Chapter, February 20th, 2020
On February 17th, 2020, eleven activists from the Milwaukee African American community received honors as "Environmental Pioneers" at a Black History Month presentation held at the Wisconsin Black History Society Museum. View full story.
Sierra Club-Wisconsin Chapter, February 20th, 2020
On February 17th, 2020, eleven activists from the Milwaukee African American community received honors as "Environmental Pioneers" at a Black History Month presentation held at the Wisconsin Black History Society Museum.
Milwaukee Urban Farm Plows Ahead Despite Coronavirus Pandemic
WUWM, August 31st, 2020
WUWM’s Susan Bence talks with Groundwork’s Damien DeBuhr and Samson Srok about the Maglio Farm and its support of local food systems including a discussion of farm operations, COVID-19 safety protocols for workers and volunteers, and Fresh Food Connect. View full story.
WUWM, August 31st, 2020
Small groups of volunteers have been helping Groundwork Milwaukee keep up with 11 hooop houses in which 12,000 pounds of produce are grown in a season (Susan Bence for WUWM).
WUWM’s Susan Bence talks with Groundwork Milwaukee’s Damien DeBuhr and Samson Srok about the Maglio Farm and its support of local food systems including a discussion of farm operations, COVID-19 safety protocols for workers and volunteers, and Fresh Food Connect.
Newsletter, March 2021
Welcome to the Groundwork Milwaukee newsletter! We will be publishing an all things Groundwork newsletter each month providing our followers with program updates, community stories, and upcoming events. Find the newsletter monthly on the News page of our website. Below is the March 2021 edition. Enjoy!
Welcome to the Groundwork Milwaukee newsletter! We will be publishing an all things Groundwork newsletter each month providing our followers with program updates, community stories, and upcoming events. Find the newsletter monthly on the News page of our website. Below is the March 2021 edition. Enjoy!
Cold Weather at the Maglio Farm
Groundwork staff harvest greens at the Maglio Farm with the snow piled high on the outside of the hoop house.
The Maglio Farm is a collaborative project between the Riverwest Food Pantry, Maglio Companies, and Groundwork Milwaukee. Staff and volunteers work year round to grow food for local food pantries on the 11 hoop house site. February was our coldest month of the winter. It tested the resilience of both our staff and the greens. Luckily, the previous two weeks of warmth have seen the greens making a nearly full recovery from the icy shock of February. The hoop houses are now consistently warmer (60-70 degrees) and should be for the rest of the season. If you come out to volunteer - remember to bring layers. Spring in Milwaukee can be very unpredictable!
April Volunteer Hours:
Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday
8:30am-12:00pm; Wednesday 5:00pm-7:30pm
March Volunteer Hours:
Thursdays 8:30am-12:00pm
Fridays, 2:00pm-4:00pm
URBAN AGRICULTURE APPRENTICESHIP
Groundwork Milwaukee is in search of an Urban Agriculture Apprentice for the 2021 growing season. The apprentice will learn agriculture fundamentals over the course of a 12 week curriculum led by our experts while taking on a leadership role at an urban farm. To view the full position description and to apply click below.
SHARED HARVEST
Groundwork staff pose with a harvest of pears from a fruit gleaning outing in summer of 2020.
Last year, Groundwork Milwaukee piloted two produce gleaning programs: Glean Milwaukee and Fresh Food Connect. This year, both of these programs are combining to launch our food rescue program: Shared Harvest.
Shared Harvest collects produce donations from community gardens and private gardens to donate to food pantries. We're excited to connect with individuals to increase food security across the city. There are many ways to contribute to this year's program!
Donate Your Extra Garden Produce with Fresh Food Connect
More info on our Fresh Food Connect page.
Volunteer to Glean and Transport Produce
If you're interested in becoming a produce gleaning bike courier - we'll provide the trailer, as well as road safety & bike maintenance orientations. Special thanks to DreamBikes for assisting with custom trailer build and road maintenance trainings. To volunteer follow the link below.
Milwaukee Grows Garden Network
March is in full swing! The Milwaukee Grows Garden Network, our anchor between our many programs, has exciting plans for this summer with plenty of room for volunteer support. Below you can find some highlights through mid-February to April, and ways to be involved.
African American Environmental Pioneers
Nearby Nature hosted their Second Annual African American Environmental Pioneer Awards. At the awards, Groundwork was able to honor two board members, Sherry Terrell-Webb and Michelle Dowl and former staff member, Antoine Carter. We are grateful for their continued contributions to Groundwork Milwaukee and the greater Milwaukee community. It is with their shared vision and guidance that we are excited to move forward with our health equity programming this summer.
Former staff member, Antoine Carter (left), board member, Sherry Terrell-Webb (center) and board member, Michelle Dowl (right).
Become a Milwaukee Grows Supporter
In 2021, Groundwork is offering the opportunity to become a Milwaukee Grows Supporting Member. The Milwaukee Grows Garden Network directly impacts the lives of over 1,200 people in Milwaukee who use the gardens for a variety of purposes such as growing food for their families and using them as safe spaces for children to play. Overall, the gardens have close to 1,080 raised garden beds growing food and flowers. These beds combined with the area of in-ground planting across the network, equates to 2.8 acres of total growing space. The gardens in the Milwaukee Grows Garden Network are important assets for their respective communities. Sign up for the Supporter Membership to bring resources to the Milwaukee Grows Garden Network.
Community Health Hubs
Thank you to our program partners, Medical College of Wisconsin and the American Cancer Society for their support of Groundwork’s Community Health Hub program. Through their generous support, we are expanding programming to six garden sites within our network. More to come about our Health Hubs programing, soon!
Groundwork GIS featured on npr
A map animation comparing historical redlining boundaries to current landcover and surface temperature in Haverhill, MA. Groundwork Milwaukee has made maps similar to these for nine cities. In each instance their is a strong relationship between historical practices of segregation and current vulnerability to climate change.
Check out this story on Boston’s local NPR station, WBUR. It discusses Groundwork USA’s Climate Safe Neighborhoods efforts in the Lawrence, MA area. All of the maps discussed in this story were made by Groundwork Milwaukee! Learn more about Climate Safe Neighborhoods below.
WEEK 5: DISCOVERING THE LAKEFRONT & THE FARM
Journalist Liandro Gamez and photographer, Jayla Johson share their 5th week of experiences on Groundwork’s Green Team (after a week off due to COVID-19 related precautions).
Note: Week 4 of Green Team programming was suspended due to precautions regarding COVID-19. Groundwork is deeply committed to keeping our community partners and staff (including Green Team and their families!) healthy during this pandemic. The week off allowed everyone to get tested and receive results, without putting anyone at risk. We came back perfectly clear and ready to finish out the rest of our summer programming.
Beginning of a New Project - Tuesday, July 28th, 2020
This Tuesday, we went to our office to work on one of our projects: making recycled paper from paper waste. We worked on breaking down old paper and cardboard, as our first step of creating new resourceful paper. We also did a fun team building activity where two teams had to compete against each other to see who could figure out the order of a story about a boy who turned into an owl. Afterwards, we continued working with Lawrence to inventory and explore more Groundwork gardens around Milwaukee. We visited and checked a few gardens, documenting any damage to be fixed in the near future.
Exploring Discovery World - Wednesday, July 29th, 2020
Wednesday, we went to Discovery World where we started off by cleaning out any animal waste and plastic we found on the aquatic plants. Once we were done with that, we did a fun activity where two teams competed with each other to see who could build the best structure that could protect an egg from a fall. For our lunch break, we went to shake shack, one of Groundwork’s partners. We ate some delicious food. We finished the day off weeding the garden boxes in front of Discovery World. All of the food grown in those beds is free to take for anyone walking by!
Making Paper - Thursday, July 30th, 2020
Thursday, we went to the office again where we met up with Elena. Elena is Groundwork’s Volunteer & Community Programs Specialist. She’s also an expert at creating recycled paper from used cardboard, old papers, and even using fruits as dye. Throughout the day, Elena taught us the ins and outs of creating paper, and how we can do it ourselves at home. It’s a bit labor intensive, but the results are amazing. We also did a group activity called the “The Best Game Ever” where each member has a chance to show off their qualities to everyone else.
Going to the Maglio Farm - Friday, July 31st, 2020
Finally, it was Friday. We started by splitting into two teams. One team planted asian greens and another team planted carrots in a hoophouse at the Maglio Farm. After that, we had a professional, named Samson (Groundwork’s Volunteer & Food Systems Specialist), teach us about different farms and their objectives. He taught us how some farms stay organic and don’t use pesticides or chemicals and how other farms only focus on making one type of vegetable or fruit. He also explained to us what GMO means: genetically modified organisms. At the end of the day, we did a three-legged race between two teams. It was difficult getting through the obstacles but extremely fun.
WEEK 3: MORE GROWING
Journalist Liandro Gamez and photographer, Jayla Johson share their experiences on Groundwork’s Green Team - week three.
Mapping and Fixing - Tuesday, July 14th, 2020
This Tuesday, we went to a variety of different gardens to record data that could be beneficial in the future. Such as checking the condition of the garden beds and recording data of the surrounding area. We also got rid of all the garbage we found along the way. Through all of our efforts we made each garden look better than when we arrived. We also went to We Got This where we continued to work on the greenhouse, and repainted some old benches. When we were done, they looked brand new!
Todd collects Mapillary imagery to create a virtual walk-through of the A Fresh Look garden (Image by Lawrence Hoffman). See the final product below.
Rainy Office Day - Wednesday, July 15th, 2020
For Wednesday we went to our office because we had a rainy day! We began the day by learning about black history, philosophy, and modern day conceptions of racism. Afterwards we decided to split up into two teams. One team worked on building benches. The other focused on painting those benches and little lending libraries. During our break, we had fun by playing a quick game of musical chairs. The victor of the match was Jaylah!
Restoring Grow and Play - Thursday, July 16th, 2020
On Thursday, we went to Grow and Play where we continued our mission of restoring this precious garden. We started by repairing some of the garden beds, adding new wooden boards where they were needed. We also removed the few remaining weeds in the garden beds so they could be used later. After all this was done and our job was finished, we decided to have a friendly basketball match while waiting for our rides to pick us up.
WEEK 2: ALL OVER THE MAP
Journalist, Liandro Gamez, and photographer, Jaylah Johnson, recount their second week on Groundwork’s Green Team.
Journalist, Liandro Gamez, and photographer, Jaylah Johnson, recount their second week on Groundwork’s Green Team.
We Got This GIS Thing Down - Tuesday, July 7th, 2020
Tuesday we went through various Groundwork gardens using a GIS app called Collector to record data that could potentially be used in future efforts to repair our gardens and maintain them. We also used an app called Mapillary that is similar to Google Street View (see below example). It allows anyone to view the gardens we work on virtually. Next, we went to a garden called We Got This, where we helped the community build the foundations of a new greenhouse. This garden has been well kept and taken care of by many of the locals as they continue to innovate and show love to their neighborhood.
It’s a Hot Day to be a Gardener - Wednesday, July 8th, 2020
On Wednesday, we were able to begin completely revamping the garden, Grow & Play. We worked on weeding and repairing the crumbling garden beds. Weed wacking the area surrounding the garden beds, and trimming the bushes opened the garden back up. Our supervisor sure did give us a lot of breaks as it was sweltering hot! During some of these breaks we did some fun activities such as having a friendly race. The victor of the race was Christian. In 2nd place was Todd, and in 3rd place was Jaylah. It sure was hot, but we got the work done together as a team.
Working Closer to the Community - Thursday, July 9th, 2020
Thursday, we went to an amazing garden called Walnut hill. It is an extraordinary garden with a great backstory. Walnut Hill was opened 7 years ago by local community members in order to provide young kids and families with healthy free food. They believed that everyone should be able to have easy access to healthy fresh food. They continue to follow their beliefs while adding and growing new things in their garden. They have recently installed a water system that collects rainwater, increasing the locals access to free water for their garden beds.
A Cool Day at Cold Spring Park - Friday, July 10th, 2020
This Friday, we went to Cold Spring Park. Cold Spring Park used to be a spring with a horse track in the mid 1900s. They even held the Wisconsin State Fair here at one point. There was a fire in the area that destroyed much of the surrounding infrastructure, so the community decided to do something with the damaged area. It was turned into a neighborhood with a small community park. Today we came to clean up the area by removing many of the weeds that built up over time. Ensuring to leave the precious plants so they can continue to grow. We also placed mulch around the plants to prevent weeds from taking their resources.
WEEK 1: GETTING TO KNOW GROUNDWORK
Journalist, Jhamar James, and photographer, Jayson Johnson, recount their first week working with Groundwork.
Journalist, Jhamar James, and photographer, Jayson Johnson, recount their first week working with Groundwork Milwaukee.
Tuesday, June 30th, 2020
Today was a slow day for us but an air conditioned comfortable day in the office. We learned how to use a mapping app, how to build bases for a 500 gallon rainwater container, a wheelchair accessible garden bed and found out where our own personal items were made. Although the day was going well, we did unfortunately come to an upset. One of our garden sites was now a construction site. Luckily, we have over 100 garden sites all across Milwaukee!
Wednesday, July 1st, 2020
Today was another good but long day at "Village Roots". We as a team accomplished a lot and even got two young local volunteers to help. We weeded, repaired, and painted garden beds with some lovely colors. Volunteers came to assist, praise, and encourage us as we worked through the blazing sun. Despite the sun, we managed to pull through as a team. During lunch we had a lovely picnic and shared some laughter and tall tales.
Thursday, July 2nd, 2020
We came back to Florence Lambert Community Garden and started off very strong and finished stronger. As a team we made a lot of progress. We painted a lot, spray painted, put down mulch and topsoil, and repaired a broken garden bed. When we arrived at Florence Lambert it needed some love. When we saw the before and after photos, you could tell there was a lot of hard work, sweat, and dedication. Looking back at Florence, we are only proud of our work.
Friday, July 3rd, 2020
Today was a very fun day. We came to Maglio and got a tour of the greenhouses, held team bonding activities, and had a cookout. We weeded some of the greenhouses, picked diseased tomatoes, and weeded some pointy weeds. We played "This or That" where we practiced debating, and a game where there was a sponge in a bucket and we had to be a team and transport a sponge full of water to the other bucket. We grilled some burgers, hot dogs, ate watermelon, chips, and BANANA BREAD!
GREEN TEAM BLOG SUMMER 2020!
This is the Green Team Blog where you can meet our crew and hear directly from them about their experiences working on Groundwork projects around Milwaukee. Each week, our Journalist and Photographer work together as a Media Team to create this blog. We’ll be publishing their collections of thoughts and images weekly. Enjoy! We sure did!
It’s that time of year again. Groundwork Milwaukee has begun its Green Team training program. Each summer, high school-aged teens work with Groundwork developing technical skills in green infrastructure construction, urban agriculture, and geospatial data collection. Green Team participants learn valuable employment, leadership and technical skills all while supporting Groundwork’s important mission of fostering healthy communities through the transformation of urban space.
This is the Green Team Blog where you can meet our crew and hear directly from them about their experiences working on Groundwork projects around Milwaukee. Each week, our Journalist and Photographer work together as a Media Team to create this blog. We’ll be publishing their collections of thoughts and images weekly. Enjoy! We sure did!