News & Events – Page 17 – The Wege Foundation

SOOPER YOOPER

September 2, 2010September 2, 2014Arts & Culture, Environment

The Wege Foundation is honored to support Mark Heckman’s “Sooper Yooper” because Peter Wege believes the problem of exotic invasive species is the single biggest threat to the Great Lakes. Mark Heckman’s remarkable talent and his own love for the Great Lakes makes this book vitally important to the young people who are our future.

To learn more about Sooper Yooper & the Sooper Art 2010 contest go tohttp://sooperyooper.com

To read the Mlive artilce – click here

Artist Mark Heckman (above) has attracted attention to a host of environmental and social issues through creative billborads that have appeared across the country. Featured on the pages of both Time and Newsweek by the age of 27, Mark built a career that spanned a wide variety of projects, from designing the logo for actor Dustin Hoffman’s production company to painting the portrait of President Gerald R. Ford for the Michigan State Capitol building project.

To see more of Mark Heckman’s artwork go to http://www.markheckmanart.com

Former Boy Soldier Speaks at City High’s Graduation

June 2, 2010September 2, 2014Community Service, Education

Ishmael Beah, born in Sierra Leone on the west coast of Africa, was kidnapped by government troops when he was 12 and forced into their army. By age 13, government soldiers had trained him to kill or be killed by the rebel troops during a civil war that started in 1991. Beah’s family was slaughtered, his village burned, and Ismael was forced to become a boy soldier.

For two years this soft-spoken, articulate, and gentle young man fought and killed rebel troops until he was rescued by UNICEF in 1995. In 2007 Ishmael Beah told his story in a book titled, A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier. Ishmael dedicated his book “To all the children of Sierra Leone who were robbed of their childhoods.”

The Wege Foundation sponsored Beah’s trip from New York City to Grand Rapids to be the commencement speaker for City High School’s class of 2010. Beah now works with the United Nations and sits on the Human Rights Watch Children’s Rights Division Advisory, as well as other NGOs helping former child soldiers regain their humanity and restore their lives.

Beah, who has served on panels with President Bill Clinton and Nelson Mandela, told the graduating seniors at Fountain Street Church that his war years taught him discipline, but not to plan for the future. Every day he thought he’d be killed, as his fellow boy soldiers were one by one. But the discipline he learned to survive helped him catch up academically for the years he missed in school.

He asked the City High seniors to realize what a privilege they’ve had to learn how to read and write. “So many people in the world want that opportunity and can’t have it.”

**Above photo – The 47 student musicians in the City High School Orchestra performed during graduation ceremonies held June 3 at Fountain Street Church. Pictured from right to left: Grant Kammer, Lauren Witvoet, Kelly Drelles, and Sarah Flinksky. Conductor Bob Ward, City High’s music teacher, is also a 30-year member of the Grand Rapids Symphony playing bass trombone. Because it’s one of the few high schools to have an orchestra, many young music students in Grand Rapids come to City High for the opportunity to play in the orchestra. City High Middle School has its own orchestra with 44 members.

Ellen Satterlee, executive director of The Wege Foundation, Ishmael Beah, City High School’s 2010 graduation speaker, Terri McCarthy, vice-president of the Wege Foundation, and Dale Hovenkamp, principal of City High, are pictured at Fountain Street Church before graduation ceremonies. The Wege Foundation sponsored Ishmael Beah’s trip from New York City to address City’s graduating seniors.

NEW MASTERS OF SUSTAINABLE BUSINESS DEGREE IN G.R.

May 30, 2010May 30, 2017Education, Environment

Aquinas College announced its new Master of Sustainable Business Degree, the first of its kind in the upper Midwest, at a luncheon held May 25 in Aquinas’s Wege Center. Introducing the new offering, President Ed Balog gave Peter M. Wege full credit for pushing Aquinas in this direction starting in 2000. That’s when Wege called on the Aquinas faculty to make a commitment to preserving the environment.

Jeanne Englehart, pictured above, from the Grand Rapids Area Chamber of Commerce, announced that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and Siemens Corporation had just named Grand Rapids the most sustainable mid-sized city in the country. Englehart, who accepted the award in Houston with Grand Rapids Mayor George Heartwell, said it was pretty emotional watching the live stream of the news running across the giant TV screen in New York’s Time Square. Englehart noted that this new educational opportunity at Aquinas confirmed why Grand Rapids was so honored.

Deborah Steketee, Ph.D. Associate Professor of Sustainable Business, described the new 1.5-2 year masters degree combining science, environmental, and business courses as a program of service to society. Steketee noted that this new graduate degree is consistent with the Dominican Sisters’ mission of doing good for the world.

Nancy Hickey, representing Steelcase, a major sponsor of the new masters degree in Sustainable Business, talked about how the program fits Steelcase’s long-time commitment to green manufacturing and sustainable business operations. Rather than costing more to use sustainable practices to run their business, Steelcase’s experience is that respect for the triple bottom line – environmental, financial, and social – has given the company a competitive advantage and raised profits.

Steelcase Retirees Hear Update on Restoring the Great Lakes

May 2, 2010September 2, 2014Environment

Ellen Satterlee, Executive Director of The Wege Foundation, introduces Alan Steinman, Ph.D., of the Annis Water Resources Institute at Grand Valley State University.

The very active and energetic Steelcase Retirees Club of invited the Wege Foundation to speak in May at one of their regular monthly meetings held at Steelcase headquarters. The retirees wanted to learn more about the status of healing the Great Lakes. The 450 members all know Peter Wege and respect him for his years of leadership at Steelcase. They also admire the fact that Peter helped urge Steelcase into operating a “green” company long before environmental manufacturing became popular.

Dr. Steinman shared both the bad and the good news with the retirees in Steelcase’s Global Auditorium. Ninety percent of Michigan’s wetlands have been filled in. Since these wetlands act like kidneys filtering out pollutants, that bad news has serious implications. It means that non-point sources of pollution—including runoff from roads, fertilizer, and livestock—enters the Great Lakes without the cleansing effect of passing through wetlands.

The good news Steinman shared with the club members is that $20 billion in federal legislation to restore the Great Lakes is on the books and $475 million of that has already been funded.

also – National Wildlife Federation Executive Speaks on Invasive Species

Andy Buchsbaum, Great Lakes Division director for the NWF, followed Dr. Steinman on stage for their combined updates on the threats and the hopes for the Great Lakes. Buchsbaum focused on the destruction of invasive species that is already costing Great Lakes taxpayers as much as $8 billion dollars a year.

The Steelcase retirees heard that invasive species have now destroyed 94% of the diporeia, the major food source at the bottom of the Great Lakes, that supports native aquatic life. That only took ten years, from 1995 to 2005. The speed of such drastic destruction means the future of Great Lakes’ fishing is in serious jeopardy.

Buchsbaum pointed out that while keeping Asian carp out of Lake Michigan in Chicago has made headlines, the other half of needing a barrier to the Mississippi River is just as critical, but less publicized. Without separating the two bodies of water, quagga mussels – bigger and meaner than their zebra cousins – are now doing their environmental damage across the United States as they move out of the Great Lakes into our country’s waterways.

Buchsbaum, like Steinman, offered some good news. By acting now to end pollution, restore habitats, and stop the inflow of invasive species, the Great Lakes immune system can heal. The NWF officer praised Peter Wege and The Wege Foundation for launching the Great Lakes Coalition that is behind the $20 billion restoration bill.

And the Steelcase retirees were proud to learn that this coalition of over 110 environmental organization was born right there at Steelcase’s headquarters in 2004.

Above Picture – Steelcase Retirees Club vice-president Bob Burr and Wege Foundation Director Ellen Satterlee hold the board for NWF official Andy Buchsbaum. Buchsbaum’s chart demonstrates the critical loss of diporeia at the bottom of Lake Michigan from voracious invasive species. Since diporeia is the beginning link of the Great Lakes’ native fish-food chain, the destruction of this food source threatens the entire Great Lakes fishing industry.

Famous Oceanographer Engages GRPS Students

April 16, 2010September 2, 2014Education, Environment

Dr. Sylvia Earle signs autographs for City High Middle School students Sherri Trumbell and Jenifer White.

You cannot save what you do not know and love. Aldo Leopold, American ecologist

The week of Earth Day April 2010 was celebrated at Grand Rapids Public Schools’ City High/Middle School when Dr. Sylvia Earle, an internationally famous oceanographer, spent a morning there. Dr. Earle held students spellbound as she called on them to save the ocean (she uses the singular because they’re all connected) before it’s too late.

Dr. Earle was named by Time Magazine as its first “Hero For the Planet”; the New York Times dubbed Earle “Her Deepness” for the 7,000 hours she’s spent underwater studying ocean life. The Library of Congress called her a “Living Legend.”

But the sixth-graders at The Center for Economicology were just as impressed that she suggested to Google founder John Hanke how he should improve Google EARTH. And Hanke listened! Dr. Earle told Hanke that since most of the Earth is ocean, he needed to create a Google Ocean. And now he has.

“How does the ocean affect us?” one sixth-grader in the Economicology class asked. “A lot,” the warm and friendly Earle answered. Every drop of water on earth is connected to the ocean. Twenty percent of the oxygen humans need for every breath comes from the ocean. “We are all part of one system,” Dr. Sylvia told them.

Having spent the equivalent of four years in work weeks under the ocean, Dr. Earle told the students to “go buy a swimming mask so you can see what’s underwater.” Dr. Earle’s message to these young people is that once they look at sea life and know what richness swims there, they will want to take care of the ocean.

Answering students’ questions, Dr. Earle told them:

No two fish faces look alike
90% of tuna are gone and tuna can’t be farm raised
Stop eating tuna in any form to prevent its extinction
Grouper is endangered because it tastes good
Half the ocean’s coral reefs are gone or are degrading
Whales and some fish can be 200 years old
800 feet underwater divers first see sparks of light
1,000 feet down the sea life sparkles like July 4th

After Dr. Earle’s visit, a City High senior girl told her teacher she had just decided what she wants to study in college. The ocean!

(Above photo – Pictured here with members of City High’s Eco Club, Dr. Sylvia Earle delivered a strong warning to all the students. If we are to preserve the ocean all life depends on, people must act now. “The next ten years are the most important in the next 10,000 years,” she told the students. ‘What we do or don’t do to bring our oceans back to life will determine our future.”)

Wege Lecture Speaker Captivates her Audience

April 15, 2010September 2, 2014Environment, Wege Speaker Series

sylviaearle Dr. Sylvia Earle, a global authority on the ocean and Explorer-in-Residence at the National Geographic Society, both entertained and warned a packed audience at Aquinas College during the week of Earth Day April 2010. Dr. Earle delivered the 14th annual Wege Foundation Lecture titled, “Without Blue There Is No Green.” In other words, if we don’t start protecting the ocean and its sea life, we face losing the ‘green’ Earth” as well.

The title of Dr. Earle’s latest book title summarizes her global message: The World Is Blue: How Our Fate And The Ocean’s are One. Since all life is interconnected, living things require a healthy ocean. And she did not fudge the need for immediate action: “The next ten years are the most important in the next 10,000. What we do or don’t do to bring the ocean back to life will determine our future.”

Dr. Earle never eats fish. “How could I when I have seen their faces and no two of them look alike!” Since 90% of the world’s tuna are gone and tuna can’t be farm raised, she asked her audience to stop eating tuna in any form now. Instead she asked them to eat three fish that can be replenished by farming: tilapia, carp, and catfish.

Tuna are being fished out of existence by commercial fishermen with their 30-mile long nets. Every year they are taking 100 million tons of fish from the ocean. And 20% of those fish, or 20 million tons of fish, are thrown away as “bycatch.” Three-hundred thousand mammals a year are killed as bycatch.

As the winner of the competitive Ted Prize, Dr. Earle could choose a mission. Hers is to create protected spots in the ocean—Hope Spots—where sea life can’t be removed.

When asked what will happen to commercial fishermen when their fishing beds are taken away, Dr. Earle did not soft-pedal her answer. “They’ll find new work. Learn a new skill.” She pointed out that many people in this economy have had to do the same thing.

Dr. Earle’s short video took her audience into the “deep” ocean with narrative including:

• Only 5% of the ocean has ever been seen

• Exploring the ocean’s “twilight” zone, 400-500 feet down, one scientist has discovered 14 new species every hour

• The first time humans ever saw a photograph of the Earth was July 1969 during the moon landing

Dr. Earle noted that technology has now allowed scientists to explore the ocean as never before. People didn’t used to know about the deep ocean or how humans have depleted marine life the world needs to survive. But now, Dr. Earle said emphatically, “We do know! And if we don’t protect marine life now, future generations will look back and ask, ‘Why didn’t you do something when you KNEW?’’

sylviapeter

(Above photo – Peter Wege and world-famous oceanographer Dr. Sylvia Earle exchange books before Dr. Earle delivered the 14th annual Wege Lecture at Aquinas College. Peter autographed a copy of his new book ECONOMICOLOGY II for her, and she signed a copy for him of The Ocean published by the National Geographic Society where she is the Explorer-in-Residence.)

Generosity In G.R. Makes $62 Million Kroc Happen

April 2, 2010September 2, 2014Community Service, Environment

When Ray Kroc first started selling McDonald’s hamburgs in Chicago, he was impressed by the dedication of Salvation Army members ringing bells on the Windy City’s frozen street to raise money for needy families. He couldn’t know his little business would turn into an empire, but generous from the get-go, Ray Kroc began delivering free coffee and sandwiches to the bell ringers.

Fast forward to 2004. Ray Kroc’s widow leaves the largest gift ever made to any nonprofit when she gives $1.7 billion to the Salvation Army. But not a penny could go to existing programs. Ray and Joan Kroc’s legacy was to build 30 first-class, top-quality family centers around the country in underserved communities. With the Salvation Army’s long history of caring for the neediest, Joan Kroc chose them as the best organization to run the centers.

The Grand Rapids, Michigan, Salvation Army made a successful bid to build a center.After three years putting this dream together, on October 21, 2010, the 99,000 square-feet, building on 20 acres of land at 2500 South Division near Alger, the Ray and Joan Kroc Center will open its doors. With a mission of transforming lives through arts, music, education, wellness, recreation, and worship, the Kroc Center will happen thanks to streams of generosity.

Yes, the Kroc estate donated $47 million to Grand Rapids. But the necessary $15 million in matching funds came from a giving Grand Rapids community that understood what this high-end learning, playing, and worshiping center will mean to the thousands of families who live within a mile of it. Every thing inside – from the swimming pool/lazy river/slide to the climbing wall to the 300-seat auditorium to the fitness equipment and computer center – is state-of-the art.

Peter Wege and the Wege Foundation have been involved from the beginning as a major donor and as a green-building influence. Indeed, Wege’s environmental leadership contributed to the Salvation Army’s daring decision to install a geo-thermal heating/cooling system rather than the standard fossil-fuel burning systems. One direct result of that choice is t

The green playing field behind the crane covers the deep wells pulling up water warmed by the Earth to fuel the Salvation Army's 99,000 square-foot family center's heating/cooling system. This geo-thermal system helped the Salvation Army's Grand Rapids Kroc Center earn enough extra LEED points from the U.S. Green Building Council to qualify for a silver and perhaps a gold medallion. — The green playing field behind the crane covers the deep wells pulling up water warmed by the Earth to fuel the Salvation Army’s 99,000 square-foot family center’s heating/cooling system.
This geo-thermal system helped the Salvation Army’s Grand Rapids Kroc Center earn enough extra LEED points from the U.S. Green Building Council to qualify for a silver and perhaps a gold medallion.

hat G.R.’s Kroc Center has moved up from earning the United States Green Building Council’s LEED certification to the silver level and maybe even the gold award from environmental construction.

(Above photo – James Mueller, development office/Salvation Army, Terri McCarthy, Wege Foundation, S.A. volunteer Julie Lovell, head of the new Kroc Center Major Roger Ross, and Ellen Satterlee, of the Wege Foundation, stand in front of the inside equipment running the geo-thermal heating-cooling system for the Kroc Family Center at 2500 South Division. Economicologist Peter Wege helped influence the Salvation Army to install the environmentally friendly system that draws on warmed water from the earth instead of burning fossil fuels.

University of Michigan Holds 9th Peter M. Wege Lecture

March 15, 2010September 2, 2014Wege Speaker Series

Monday, March 22, 2010, Dr. John P. Holdren (pictured left), Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy for President Obama, delivered the ninth annual lecture at the University of Michigan named for sponsor Peter M. Wege. Dr. Holdren spoke to a full house of faculty, students, and guests in the University’s Rackham Auditorium.

Holdren’s topic was “Science and Technology Policy Priorities and Opportunities in the Obama Administration.” President Obama’s personal advisor on Science and Technology outlined the administration’s plans and projected budgets for elevating the role of science in the federal government. Bringing more scientists into the White House’s decision-making process was a key platform in Obama’s 2008 Presidential campaign.

With Earth Day approaching, University President Mary Sue Coleman reminded the audience that Michigan played a key role in the original 1970 Earth Day. Having started the nation’s first Teach-In protesting the Viet Nam War in 1965, Michigan students decided to host a second one to support Earth Day.

But since national Earth Day was April 22 in the middle of Michigan’s final exams, the students put on their Teach-In during March 1970—effectively kicking off the first Earth Day. Founder of Earth Day, Wisconsin Senator Gaylord Nelson later credited U-M with inspiring groups across the country to join the first Earth Day celebrations a month later.

Speaking on the need for better education on climate change, President Coleman noted that while the science community tracks the increasing environmental damage from carbon emissions, the public is moving the other way. Over the past two years, the number of Americans who think climate change is a hoax has actually gone up from seven to sixteen percent.

Dr. John P. Holdren The March 15, 2010 issue of The University Record, a University of Michigan newspaper describes the annual Peter M. Wege Lecture: The Wege Lecture, one of U-M’s most visible annual events, is open to the public and the academic community. It addresses important sustainability challenges facing society such as energy security, global climate change, ecosystem degradation and sustainable development strategies – with a focus on improving the systems for meeting human needs in developed and developing countries. — Dr. John P. Holdren
The March 15, 2010 issue of The University Record, a University of Michigan newspaper describes the annual Peter M. Wege Lecture:
The Wege Lecture, one of U-M’s most visible annual events, is open to the public and the academic community. It addresses important sustainability challenges facing society such as energy security, global climate change, ecosystem degradation and sustainable development strategies – with a focus on improving the systems for meeting human needs in developed and developing countries.

Dr. Holdren summarized the thinking among scientists on dealing with climate change. Mitigate environmental harm by reducing greenhouse gases. Adapt to what be can’t mitigated by minimizing the harm. Or suffer irreversible harm to the planet if both mitigation and adaptation fail.

*Above – Dr. Jonathan Bulkley, University of Michigan, School of Natural Resources and the Environment, Dr. Rosina Bierbaum, Dean of SNR and E, Dr. Greg Keolian, SNR and E, pose with Dr. John Holdren, Assistant to President Obama for Science and Technology, following Holdren’s delivery of the Ninth Annual Peter M. Wege Lecture at the University of Michigan.

So Who’s This Peter Wege? And What In Heck Is Economicology?

March 2, 2010September 2, 2014Environment

March 24, 2010 A rain forest in Costa Rica is named for Peter Wege. The New York Times featured the world’s first newly built clean-energy art museum and attributed its origin to him. Saving the Great Lakes has turned into a hot media topic and a $20 billion federal law because the same man called a meeting at Steelcase Inc. in 2004 and started the Healing Our Waters Great Lakes Coalition.

Grand Rapids, Michigan native Peter M. Wege, son of Steelcase Inc. founder Peter Martin Wege, started The Wege Foundation to honor his father and his mother Sophia Louise. For more than four decades Peter has devoted his energy, assets and passion to performing good deeds for the environment. So how else would he celebrate his 90th birthday in February 2010 than by writing a new environmental book?

ECONOMICOLOGY II pulls together a variety of writers to support Wege’s advocacy for economicology: striking a balance between our economy and our ecology. As with its predecessor, ECONOMICOLOGY: The Eleventh Commandment, published in 1998, Wege’s new book refers to the experts on sustainability who have influenced him in his work and his philanthropy.

The experts featured in the book run the gamut. From his early hero John Gardner to one of today’s most familiar environmental personalities, Thomas Friedman. From H.G. Wells to Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. As he did with his first book, Wege hopes ECONOMICOLOGY II will encourage readers to read these experts’ books. ECONOMICOLOGY II is now available at The Wege Foundation web site with proceeds going to the Center of Economicology, City High-Middle School, a Grand Rapids Public School. (Did we mention the new species of butterfly named Porphyrogenes peterwegei? It’s pictured on page 108.