Autumn 2024
October 10th, 2024
Fall is here, and at WaterMarks, we have been making a lot of progress on the installation of WaterMarkers, as well as growing our outreach programs. We are hopeful that in the next couple of months we will continue to strengthen our connections with many partners and make plans for exciting future events.
If you are new to receiving our newsletters, welcome! In this space we like to share what we have been up to, future events, and highlight some of our neighborhood partners. If there are specific updates you would like to see, please reach out and we will see what we can do
WaterMarks Walk
Grasslyn Manor Community Walk
Date: October 12th, 2024
Time: 1:00pm - 2:30pm
Location: Albright United Methodist Church
5555 W Capitol Dr. Milwaukee, WI 53216
Community-University Working Group
Amplifying CUWG Members Voices:
WaterMarks provides a meeting place for Milwaukee's artists, residents, and scientists. We would like to highlight some of the community voices that contributed to its development.
Sarah Gail Luther
Sarah Gail Luther is a modern ‘Flower Child’ and practicing Milwaukee-based artist documenting and exploring the familiar, average, or forgotten. She identifies overlap in her practice between being an artist, present in nature, and a thoughtful human being. Public projects include Milwaukee: Spaces To Places, The Hank Aaron Trail Exchange, Three Bridges Park, My Grandma is a Living Legend, and Portrait Booth. Her work is interconnected with community involvement and care, creating exhibits that provide and relate to their sites.
For WaterMarks, Sarah developed artistic street signage welcoming people to Harbor View Plaza along E. Greenfield Avenue.
Travis Hope
KK River
Travis Hope created funky benches inspired by his own children’s designs to be placed in Pulaski Park in a community effort to renovate it. He found his appreciation for the river by getting involved in a river clean-up. After participating in several other community activities he became an active member of the KK River Neighbors in Action.
Maria Beltran
Lindsay Heights
Maria Beltran is a proud home-owning resident of Milwaukee’s Lindsay Heights neighborhood, and is active in efforts to improve the community. Maria participates in the health and wellness challenge, the Neighborhood Improvement District (NID), as well as the city’s lead abatement program, and opens her home to community gatherings.
“I love my house and I don’t want to leave from it. Because it’s a family house. It’s somewhere where everyone gathers, even neighbors.”
WaterMarks Staff Spotlight
Ellie Jackson (she/her/hers)
PROJECT MANAGER, Community-University Working Group (CUWG)
What is your role in WaterMarks?
WaterMarks Project Manager. I work to make sure that WaterMarks is rooted in Milwaukee so that it’s an accessible and long-lasting project by working with CUWG members throughout the year and co-creating an Adaptable Model Guide so this project can inspire other informal science learning projects in other cities.
What about CUWG makes you the most excited?
I’m always excited about the ideas and brainstorming that happens at CUWG meetings. Each conversation is different, but always really helpful for making sure that WaterMarks is successful for Milwaukee.
What do you hope the future of CUWG looks like?
I hope that the relationships that have been growing between CUWG members are long lasting, and I hope that CUWG becomes more central in decision making for WaterMarks moving forward.
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Outside of WaterMarks, Ellie is a practicing singer, songwriter, and musician in multiple bands, including a solo project. She is also a part owner of Kuumba Juice and Coffee. Which is a local coffee shop, that serves as a community gathering space near the Beerline Trail.
Their mission is: "To always do as much as we can, in the way we can, to leave our community more beautiful and beneficial than we inherited it."
They are open Wednesdays through Sundays, go check them out and try their healthy juices or a hot chai!
Check out Ellie's Instagram and Kuumba's website at the buttons listed below!
Laurie Marks (she/her/hers)
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR of the Center of Student Experience and Talent (SET)
What is your role in WaterMarks?
My role in the WaterMarks Project is to be a champion of the CUWG side of the work. Also, my role as a UWM employee is to support community engaged faculty on their projects, so part of what I do is engage with Woonsup, Ryan, and Jessica as they see fit.
What about CUWG makes you the most excited?
The thing that is most exciting about WaterMarks and CUWG, is that the markers are starting to pop up around the city. When I drive by them I feel a sense of excitement and take the opportunity to tell anyone around me who will listen about the art and markers and purpose of the project. This past weekend I met a retired school teacher from the UCC school and we talked about the 'A' marker at Acosta, and she remembered it but wasn't sure what it was for, so it was a cool moment to chat about the first marker.
What do you hope the future of CUWG looks like?
From a practical perspective I hope CUWG becomes part of the fabric of understanding of water conservation during storms in Milwaukee, but more broadly, my hope is that WaterMarks helps to better connect myself and all others who grew up here in a more intimate way to the water around us. Lifelong Milwaukeeans might have been raised with the idea that the lake and the rivers were viewed as barriers, or dangerous, or borders. What I hope is that WaterMarks helps us to see the water around us as part of what defines Milwaukee's beauty and a critical part of our natural resources to be honored. I hope as part of this shift all kids are given a chance to explore the water more, from the shore and on boats on the lake.
Partner Events
WaterMarks isn't building an atlas of water alone.
We work with countless organizations and individuals on this endeavor. WaterMarks Community-University Working Group is a collective of residents, artists, community-based institutions, and researchers who assemble to guide the future of water in Milwaukee.
Here are some upcoming events that our partners are hosting:
FALL PUMPKIN FEST
Join NWSCDC for an annual fall celebration at the MMSD West Basin with free pumpkins, music, kids' games, coloring, chalk, and other activities! Bring your family to the pop-up pumpkin patch and learn more about MMSD's proposed stormwater basin project!
They have run out of pumpkins in past years, so they have decided to limit pumpkins to a maximum of three per family so they can serve more people. Pumpkins will be distributed on a first-come, first-served basis until they run out. Children must be present in order to receive a pumpkin. Learn More!
Location: MMSD West Basin
4350 North 35th StreetMilwaukee, WI, 53216
Date/Time: October 11th / 3:30pm-6:30pm
THE ENVIRONMENTAL SCARE
We hope to see you at the Environmental Scare! Halloween celebration, hosted by Sixteenth Street Community Health Centers, and KK River Neighbors in Action in collaboration with City of Milwaukee NIDC.They encourage you to dress up in your Halloween costumes and come to Pulaski Park to safely trick-or-treat at local groups' decorated tables! There will be free pumpkins, hot chocolate, and sweet bread!
Location: Pulaski-Milwaukee Park, Pavilion, 2677 S. 16th St., Milwaukee, WI 53215
Date/Time: October 19th/ 11:00am-1:00pm
DATA DAY
Data Day is an annual event, hosted by Data You Can Use, which provides an opportunity for leaders from neighborhoods, nonprofits, universities, the public sector, and beyond to better understand what data is available, the implications of data on community revitalization, and how to increase connections between research and practice. This year’s theme is Measures and Movements: Using Data to Spark Change. We hope you can join us! Learn More!
Location: Italian Community Center, Inc., 631 E Chicago St, Milwaukee, WI 53202
Date/Time: October 23rd/ 8:30am-4:00pm
Farm/Art DTour October 5th - 14th
Join Wormfarm Institute for a free self-guided excursion through 50 miles of scenic farmland in rural Sauk County, Wisconsin, punctuated by site-responsive artworks, pasture performances, roadside poetry, local food markets and more. Inviting thousands to appreciate the art of what farmers do everyday, the Farm/Art DTour invites you to come closer to the land that supports us all.