Trees beautify Middle Village neighborhood

Fifty new trees will help beautify a neighborhood in Middle Village and continue to add to the lush greenery that makes up the Menominee Reservation.

For Menominee Indian High School’s Sustainability Under one Nation (SUN) Squad, though, it was just another day in the outdoors.

The SUN Squad helped Menominee tribal officials to plant the trees in a quiet residential neighborhood at County Road G and Hickory Road, beautifying a park road and adding some green to its northern border facing state Highway 47 as a wind barrier. Among the 50 trees were 18 white pine trees, paid for through a $5,000 Trees Forever grant from Alliant Energy.

Ryan Fish Sr., project manager for the tribe, said during the planting June 20 that he hopes the grants will be a yearly thing to help continue improving the environment.

“This is the first year this (grant) has been in Wisconsin,” Fish said. “It’s previously been in Iowa. My plan is to do this again next year and finish off the wind barrier.”

High school science teacher Christine Fossen-Rades said providing the trees as a wind break helps out the environment, but the SUN Squad’s involvement does something more.

“It continues the cycle of regeneration in this community, but more than that, it’s a graduation ritual,” Fossen-Rades said. “Everyone who graduates from this high school will have their own dedicated tree. Every tree will have a plaque to represent the graduation class. It’s kind of how this whole project started out.”

Even with the project being dedicated to students and education, the primary goal is to stave off climate change.

“This provides options for our youth to make a change in the community,” Fossen-Rades said. “It empowers our kids. That’s the bottom line to allow our youth know that they have an ability to change the route of our community.”

According to Fish, the tree planting was supposed to take place in May, but with graduation and other activities dominating the community, it was decided to wait a month.

“It came so quick. We were awarded the grant, but I didn’t have time to alert the school,” Fish said.

The trees planted were just under four feet tall. Fish said the tribe had tried planting smaller trees, but they did not take.

“Some of these are more established,” Fish said. “We wanted to get a little bit bigger to see if they take better.”

Fish noted the tribe had a pretty narrow list of what could be planted. Besides the white pines, spruce trees were also planted.

“We couldn’t bring in a cherry tree,” he said with a laugh. “Maples were also not allowed, even though I wanted to plant some maples.”

Shawano Lawn and Stone provided most of the trees for the project and donated some mulch for the planting, according to Fish.

The SUN Squad has been doing environmental projects on the reservation for the last three years with several of the tribe’s departments, as well as with the College of Menominee Nation’s Sustainability Development Institute, according to Fossen-Rades.

“They provide an education and an opportunity for our kids to participate,” she said. “I’m very fortunate. I don’t think many schools that are Indigenous-based collaborate culture with science, and that has really been embraced in our community. Every science lesson ultimately has a cultural aspect. They don’t fight against each other. They’re more complementary or advantageous to each other.”

Among some of the projects the group has done include providing opposition to the Back Forty Mine project, conducting energy audits at the high school to promote efficiency, measuring fish for surveys, collaring bears, releasing sturgeon and more.

“I actually came out of retirement to be in this job,” Fossen-Rades said, noting she’d been a teacher in De Pere for 35 years before principal Chuck Raasch, who recently retired, asked her to come to Menominee Indian to help with the school’s science and culture programs.

Fossen-Rades hopes that the lessons learned in things like planting trees will help her students to discover the importance of caring for the earth, noting that the school’s administration has been very supportive of the SUN Squad’s efforts.

“Every day, we go out and do something,” Fossen-Rades said. “We’ve harvested wild rice and planted wild rice and seeded it. We’re just doing things to improve our relationships and involve our students. Empowerment is something that kids need.”

lpulaski@newmedia-wi.com