It is that time of the year when the trees and other plants change the pigments in their leaves. The reds, yellows, and oranges (no, not the fruit) make the outdoors like a painting. On top of that, the temperatures are starting to take a dip into the chilly end of the weather pool. Don’t get me started on the snow. Let us push that back as much as possible for now. One weather phenomena that still sticks around throughout the entire year is rain.

Last summer the Urban Ecology Center held its first Engineering for Kids Summer Camp for third and fourth graders. The entire experience at this camp completely exceeded my expectations. The campers built a raft with their own hands out of recycled wood, inner tubes, ropes and milk jugs and on their last day of camp they embarked on a big adventure - gliding their raft down the Menomonee River.

I felt intimately connected to this project as it reminded me of my childhood. My friends and I used to build rafts with driftwood in the Alagón River Reservoir, Spain. It was a passion I could share with my campers.

Did you know that September is Coastal Awareness Month? Here at the Center we’re celebrating our amazing “third coast” with a number of water-based educational programs geared toward educational exploration and recreation of Milwaukee’s watersheds.

One of the longest running programs we have at the Urban Ecology Center is called River Connections. Through this program, students get right into the Milwaukee River in hip waders to test water quality at two locations – one urban, here in Riverside Park, and one rural, at Riveredge Nature Center. The students are amazed when, on occasion, the readings they find in the city are better than the rural readings. We teach them that this is due, in part, to the removal of the North Avenue Dam which allowed the river to flow free, cleaning itself.

This free flowing water is essential to river health, which is essential to our health.

So, how does one woman raise a family, turn a business into one of Wisconsin’s largest woman-owned enterprises, form a community organization dedicated to her passion, and collaborate with local leaders and dignitaries to create one of Milwaukee’s great attractions all in the same lifetime? This same woman, now settled into retirement, is still going strong and impacting our community in positive ways. I was eager to know how she does it.