Page 14 – The Wege Foundation

University of Michigan’s Newest Dean Wows Her Audience

April 30, 2012May 30, 2017Education, Environment

Healing lead-poisoning in children with backpacks? According to the new Dean of Michigan’s School of Natural Resources & the Environment, books in a backpack are indeed a good start! And Dean Dr. Marie Lynn Miranda should know. She is an academician and a pediatrician whose research specialty – and passion – is improving environmental health conditions for the disadvantaged, especially children.

Duke University’s loss became Michigan’s gain in January 2012 when Dr. Miranda left her dual posts at Duke as a faculty member in the Nicholas School of Environment and as a physician with the medical school. On March 26, Dean Miranda delivered the 11th annual Peter M. Wege Lecture on Sustainability at her new university. Since the series started in 2001, the University of Michigan’s Wege Lecture has become one of the most popular on campus.

Combining her intellectual strengths, compassion for children, love for family, and sense of humor, Dr. Miranda captivated the crowd adding to the Wege Lecture’s stellar reputation. Dr. Miranda showed graphics on how her research team locates high-risk areas – usually in impoverished neighborhoods – for environmental toxins, including lead. They then collect blood studies of children in the area who have elevated lead levels.

By testing these children, Dr. Miranda found clear evidence of developmental deficits attributed to the lead in their bodies. Children are at greater risk for lead poisoning, Dr. Miranda explained, “because they are not little adults.”

They crawl on the ground, put things in their mouths, and have higher metabolisms causing them to breathe more air and drink more water per pound than adults. That’s why children are more vulnerable to environmental toxins like lead that can diminish their ability to learn.

The positive news, according to Dr. Miranda’s results, is that an enriched environment can help mediate the mental deficits caused by ingesting lead. And that is where the backpacks come in. Working with the schools and teachers, Dr. Miranda’s team visits the children affected by lead poisoning. They give each child a bright new backpack filled with what Dr. Miranda calls “really good books” along with a library-card application.

Miranda’s team also puts in a growth chart for the parents so they can track their child’s developmental progress. This information enables the parents to get help if they see signs of developmental slowing.

Dr. Jonathan Bulkley, Peter Wege’s longtime dear friend and newly retired professor in the University of Michigan’s SNR & E, Dr. Miranda, and Dr. Keoleian at the dinner following the annual Peter M. Wege Lecture on Sustainability delivered in 2012 by Dr. Marie Lynn Miranda.

mirandaclaw — Dr. Marie Lynn Miranda displays not only her enthusiasm for her new career at the University of Michigan, but also her crowd-winning sense of humor.

mirandaellen — Dr. Marie Lynn Miranda, the new Dean of the University of Michigan’s School of Natural Resources & the Environment, presents Ellen Satterlee, CEO of The Wege Foundation, a poster of the talk Dean Miranda gave as the speaker for the 2012 Peter M. Wege Lecture on Sustainability.

KROC TOUR WITH JENNIFER AND CAITLIN WEGE

April 15, 2012July 29, 2015Community Service, Environment

Two of Peter Wege’s granddaughters, Jennifer Wege from North Carolina and Caitlin Wege from California, came to Grand Rapids in March to attend LaughFest, a fundraiser for the cancer-support group Gilda’s Club. The Wege Foundation has been a major LaughFest sponsor since the 10-day comedy festival kicked off in 2011.

While in town, Jennifer and Caitlin – whose father Peter Wege II is President of The Wege Foundation Board – wanted to see some of their family foundation’s work in action. High on their list was the Kroc Family Center they knew about, but wanted to see for themselves.

To build the center named for the founder of McDonald’s, the Kroc Trust gave the Salvation Army $45M – $30M for construction and $15M for endowment. But the gift was conditional: the Army had to raise a one-third match in local gifts. Grand Rapids’ collective generosity – typified by the Wege family – came through with $15 million to make the Kroc Center happen.

On a sunny spring morning, Captain Peter Mount, Kroc’s Congregational Life Officer, and Operations Director Manager Kraig Smottlach gave the Wege sisters and two Wege Foundation executives the full tour. They walked them through the two-story, 105,000 square-foot building, from the chapel to the pool. The visitors saw how the facilities were designed to meet the Center’s mission of worship, education, recreation, and the arts.

Outdoors they viewed the 20 acres of playing fields, amphitheatre, fish pond, sliding hill, and 2010 ArtPrize winning sculpture, Table and Chairs. Kraig knew Jennifer and Caitlin were particularly interested in the geo-thermal heating/cooling system their grandfather was responsible for. Pointing oa;;ut the system’s location under a green field, Kraig was happy to report that while they’d found some glitches in other mechanics, the Wege-inspired geo-thermal system worked like a charm.

The extra expense to install geo-thermal, Kraig explained, would be paid off in a few years. After that, the system will be paying the Kroc back through its huge savings in heating and cooling costs.

Throughout the tour, all four Wege Foundation visitors shared their enthusiasm for what they were seeing. Among other things, they were impressed by the numbers – 250,000 people through the doors a year, 4,500 weekly; 5,500 members; 761 different classes and 11 weeks of summer camp.

The Wege Foundation Honors Peter Wege’s Mother

April 1, 2012May 30, 2017Health Care

Sophia’s Guest House at Saint Mary’s Health Care is named after Sophia Dubridge Wege, Peter M. Wege’s mother. The three-story Guest House – built in 1959 to house hospital interns – has been gutted and renovated earning LEED certification for environmental construction.

Sophia’s House’s 15 private rooms with bath offer families of overnight patients who live 30 miles or more from Grand Rapids a welcoming home across the street from Saint Mary’s. Since one-fourth of the hospital’s in-patients come from out of town, Sophia’s House fills an important need.

While all patients’ families are welcome, Saint Mary’s sees the new Guest House as vital to its kidney transplant program. As West Michigan’s only adult kidney transplant hospital – the University of Michigan’s is the next closest – Saint Mary’s needed a comforting place to house those patients’ family members on short-notice.

“We have a kidney for you. Come now!” The phone call patients have been waiting a long time to hear comes anytime 24/7. Packing is the last thing on that family’s agenda. They are in the car and gone.

Exhilarated and exhausted, these families now have a homelike place to crash, eat meals, do laundry, and then cross Lafayette Street to spend time with their hospitalized loved one. In their rooms they’ll find free WiFi, cable TV, a coffee maker, a master bedroom with a king/queen mattress, and a guest room that sleeps up to four more family members.

Sophia’s House, with its fireplaced living room, a fully stocked community kitchen, and quiet reflective spaces, charges $35 a night for families who can pay it and reduced rates for others. Thanks to a generous endowment, no family will be turned away.

**Pictured above in hard hats on a construction-site tour of Saint Mary’s Sophia’s Guest House: L to R, Simie Bredeweg, R.N. Manager of the Kidney Transplant Center; Ellen Satterlee, CEO of The Wege Foundation, and Terri McCarthy, The Foundation’s V.P. of Programming; Caitlin Wege, great-granddaughter of Sophia Louise Wege for whom the Guest House is named; Michelle Rabideau, Director of the Saint Mary’s Foundation.

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sophiasinside — Inside Sophia’s Guest House: Caitlin Wege, on a visit from San Diego, California, where she is a designer for one of Steelcase’s healthcare distributorships; Michelle Rabideau, Ellen Satterlee, Terri McCarthy, and Simie Bredeweg.

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sophiasoutside — Saint Mary’s Health Care is seen directly across the street through the window of Sophia’s Guest House during construction.

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Steelcase son Peter Wege to enter environmental hall of fame

March 20, 2012September 2, 2014Environment

Matt Vande Bunte | mvandebu@mlive.com By Matt Vande Bunte | mvandebu@mlive.com
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on March 20, 2012 at 12:17 PM, updated March 20, 2012 at 12:53 PM

GRAND RAPIDS – The inaugural class of inductees into the new Michigan Environmental Hall of Fame includes Peter Wege, the Grand Rapids philanthropist whose father was a Steelcase, Inc. founder.

Wege, 92, who authored “Economicology: The Eleventh Commandment” and a 2010 sequel, is among five individuals, one education program, one environmental project and one nonprofit organization set to be inducted in a 7 p.m. May 2 ceremony at the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Museum in Grand Rapids.

The Hall of Fame was created by the Muskegon Environmental Research and Education Society to honor in-state individuals, organizations and schools for environmental stewardship. The nonprofit operates the Muskegon Lake Nature Preserve in North Muskegon.

The society got 25 nominees, a spokesman said. Inductees include Wege, Robert “Bud” Slingerland, a former state lawmaker who introduced Michigan’s “bottle bill” that established a 10-cent deposit on may beverage containers, Tom Bailey, executive director of Little Traverse Conservancy, Theresa Bernhardt, a stay-at-home Muskegon mom who chairs the Ruddiman Creek Task Force, and Gloria Miller, founder of the non-profit Friends of the Looking Glass that promotes preservation of the Looking Glass River, which flows into the Grand River in Ionia County.

Other inductees: The Tuscola Intermediate School District’s Tuscola Technology Center in Caro, where students can learn about solar power, sustainable agriculture, biofuels, wind energy and green construction; Ruddiman Creek Task Force that works to clean up and restore Ruddiman Creek and Pond, which flows into Muskegon Lake and Lake Michigan; Huron River Watershed Council, a 47-year-old coalition of residents, businesses and governments that works to protect the Huron River system in southeast Michigan.

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NEWS FLASH on Improving Children’s Reading Skills: ART

February 1, 2012September 2, 2014Arts & Culture, Education

How many people know that studying fine art not only enhances artistic skills, but also raises reading scores? Some 1500 third-graders from the Grand Rapids Public Schools do because it worked for them last year! And this year almost 2,000 8-9 year olds are making new visual and verbal connections in the Grand Rapids’ Art Museum’s Tour Program.

In a synergistic partnership, GRAM, Kendall School of Design, and the GRPS are into their second year of a highly organized curriculum helping 3rd graders improve both their visual-arts and reading skills. It all begins with the third-grade teachers and the art teachers in each of GRPS’s 26 grade schools.

This year GRAM chose six pieces of art depicting animals or birds for the children to learn about weeks before their Tour date. One favorite is the Stalking Panther bronze by American sculptor Alexander Proctor given to GRAM by Peter M. Wege.

When the GRPS bus unloads the 60 third-graders at GRAM, the docents – who have spent long hours learning the Tour curriculum – take over. “Why did the artist select this pose?” the docent asks and hands go up. “Why would an animal behave like this?” More hands.

After more questions and answers, the students use their new GRAM pencils to write down what they see happening in the sculpture. This becomes the middle of a story. Next, two students partner to create a beginning and an end for their collaborated tale about the panther. Thus the sculpture is teaching the third-graders about story and descriptive writing.

When the bell rings signaling time for students to move on, another docent is waiting to talk about comparison and contrast using two horse paintings by American artists Mathias Alten and George Hartmann. Here students write down what they see as similarities and differences in the paintings.

The Tour Program is triggering these third-graders’ young brains to actively make new synapses connecting what they see, hear, and write. Indeed, this literacy-visual connection is to powerful that teachers can actually project reading strengths just by looking at a young child’s drawings.

**Docent Judy Tyner (adove photo) demonstrates the muscular extension the sculptor of Stalking Panther captured during a recent Tour Program at GRAM.

(This video shows Barb Wisse, GRPS literacy coach, presenting Carlos Ramos from Cesar E. Chavez School with one of two Tour awards last May. Carlos reads the story he wrote explaining his drawing of Croc-Zilla, a combination of a crocodile and Godzilla)

In teaching about comparison and contrast, docent Alice Gilbert shows students two different paintings that have horses as the main subject.

Jerry Mears, volunteer docent, talks to the third-graders about why this painting shown here is one of his favorites.

May 5 The New and Improved Fulton Street Farmers Market Opens Up

January 30, 2012September 23, 2014Community Service, Environment

Talk about raising the roof! Grand Rapids’ popular Fulton Street Farmers Market is undergoing a $2.7 million upgrade converting it into a year-around enterprise. In three months, the snows of winter adorning the construction site will be replaced by fruits of spring when the Market opens the first Saturday in May. Meanwhile 10-14 farmers are selling their produce on Saturdays from 10-1 in the Salvation Army’s Fulton Street parking lot at the Fuller intersection.

For the first time since the Market opened as the “East Side Market” in 1922, it will have a permanent roof, seen in the photo. The farm families who fill the stalls will also have electricity for the first time. That means refrigeration for produce in the summer and heat if they need it. A new small building with indoor stalls will be opened for business next winter. And, as with all building projects The Wege Foundation supports, the new facility will be LEED-certified.

The thousands of area residents who regularly buy their fresh produce here will find smoother traffic flows and a wider aisle making it easier for shoppers – especially moms with strollers – to move around. Shoppers with Bridge Cards will also have an easier time picking up the Food Bucks tokens that allow them to buy fruits and vegetables for half price. Last summer the FSFM and the Fair Food Network distributed $221,000 worth of federal Supplemental Nutrition Action Program (SNAP) benefits and Food Bucks enabling eligible shoppers to buy healthy, locally grown food.

As of January 12, 2012, the Midtown Neighborhood Association that manages the Market had raised $2,034,053 towards the final goal of $2,646,805. The final improvements planned for the Fulton Market – including two sets of wheelchair-accessible restrooms – will begin when the capital campaign’s goal has been reached.

farmersmarketsign — Due to construction, they will be located in the parking lot of The Salvation Army Fulton Heights Citadel (1235 East Fulton).

farmersmarketsign2 — The Market is open on Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday from 8:00 am – 3:00 pm from the first Saturday of May until the Saturday before Christmas, and Saturdays from 10:00 am to 1:00 pm January through April.

Baxter Opens A New Nest For Sparrows

January 10, 2012September 2, 2014Community Service

Baxter Community Center kicked off 2012 by filling a vital need in caring for their youngest clients when they opened a colorful new room filled with toddler toys. The sign on the door reads, “Ms. Melanie’s Sparrows.” Ellen Satterlee, CEO of The Wege Foundation, used her “naming” opportunity as one of Baxter’s 2011 St. Francis award winners by honoring Baxter’s long-time director Melanie Beelen.

The “Sparrows” name comes from the Biblical phrase, “His eye is on the sparrows” emphasizing God’s love for little children. By January 2012, nine 15-36 month-old toddlers were happy guests in Ms. Melanie’s room with more sparrows on the waiting list. This new room allows Baxter’s pre-schoolers to be divided into age-appropriate rooms: Little Lambs, two weeks-15 months, and King’s Kids ages three- to five-years old.

Baxter’s pre-school program is open from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. and has earned the highest level of national accreditation. While 4-1 is the required child-teacher ratio, Baxter’s Little Lambs have one teacher for three infants.

This new Sparrow room for pre-schoolers was made possible thanks to Baxter’s successful November 2011 fundraiser. That was when Melanie Beelen announced Ellen Satterlee (top left) and Janice Flowers (bottom left), Coordinator of Baxter’s Women, Infants and Children program, as the recipients of the St. Francis Award. These women’s contributions to Baxter are reflected in the opening lines of St. Francis’s Prayer: Lord, make me an instrument of your peace; where there is hatred, let me sow love; where this is injury, pardon; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair hope; where there is darkness, light…

The Baxter Community Center grew out of the 1960s race riots when members of Eastern Avenue Christian Reformed Church stepped in to bring people together. In 1967 the church converted its nearby Baxter Christian School into a haven where neighbors white and black could gather in a safe and supportive setting. BCC began with tutoring and gradually added preschool classes, day care, adult literacy, and counseling. Today its programs also include medical and dental clinics, tax preparations, food, and clothing help. From the beginning, Baxter’s message has been “to reveal God’s love by Christian witnessing.”

Letters to Peter Wege from S. African Travelers

January 5, 2012September 2, 2014Community Service

After the 1960s race riots, Eastern Avenue Christian Reformed Church members made a bold decision. They converted nearby Baxter Christian School into a safe haven where their neighbors white and black could come together as one. Some forty years later, Baxter Community Center continues to be “an island of hope” in the neighborhood with Grand Rapids’ highest crime rate.

Mizizi Maji, Swahili for “root water,” is Baxter’s mentoring program that offers children ages eight to 18 academic support with one adult tutor for each student. As the participants’ grades go up, so does their self-esteem and their hope for becoming “healthy, responsible citizens.”

“May God bless you for the kindness,” Calvon Owens wrote Peter Wege after the trip. “You have helped me be open-minded about many things.” In his thank-you letter, Tony Taylor wrote that the trip “gave me an idea of what I would like to do with my life and this is see the world for myself and be a living testament of God’s will.”

Shapell Gillon told Mr. Wege that she’d learned South Africa has 11 different languages, and they drive on the left side of the road. “Did you know,” Nyah McKinney wrote to Peter Wege, “they burn grass to make it grow back faster in the summer?”

Raqhelle Millbrooks told Peter Wege that TV was wrong about all Africans “being starved with flies on their faces.” Instead she saw the people as “singing or laughing no matter what place they are in.”

Baxter’s leader Sharon LaChappelle called the trip for these young people at such susceptible ages “a strong counter to all the negative things that seek to pull them down.” What they took home was so positive, Sharon wrote, “it was as if “the whole family went!”

A powerful incentive for the Mizizi students is a trip. The first two years the students who kept a 3-point GPA for three straight years went to Canada. In 2011, nine Mizizi students ages 13-15 traveled to South Africa for ten days, courtesy of The Wege Foundation.

Raqhelle Millbrooks told Peter Wege that TV was wrong about all Africans “being starved with flies on their faces.” Instead she saw the people as “singing or laughing no matter what place they are in.”

Looking Back on a Theatre and a Friendship

January 1, 2012September 2, 2014Arts & Culture

Wealthy Theatre is honoring its 100th anniversary that began with years of magical entertainment, followed by a time of decay, and now celebrating its renewed stardom. From the day it opened in 1911, Wealthy Theatre was its neighborhood’s main attraction – even claiming its own streetcar stop.

Originally named the Pastime Vaudette, the ornate theater hosted live entertainment. But before long, vaudeville was gone and the Pastime’s 400 seats were used by silent-movie goers. During World War I, Pastime closed down entirely, its large spaces storing equipment for the Michigan Aircraft Company.

In 1920, the Pastime reopened as the freshly painted baroque Wealthy Theatre. The new owners happened to be Oscar and Lillian Varneau, parents of Peter Wege’s best friend Gordy.

But by the 1950s, Wealthy Theatre began losing customers both to TV and to the new big screens built in the suburbs. In 1973, Wealthy Theatre closed and stood empty for 14 years.

The boarded-up eyesore soon became a public hazard as the area was taken over by gangs and drugs. In 1989, Grand Rapids’ City Commission voted to demolish Wealthy Theatre.

That’s when the area’s concerned residents and business owners formed the non-profit South East Economic Development to save Wealthy Theatre. They knew razing it would further damage their once vibrant neighborhood and business district.

The cost to repair the destruction done over years of vacancy and vandalism was daunting. But SEED had one shining hope. They knew Peter Wege as an environmentalist committed to restoring, not destroying. One can only imagine the SEED leaders’ joy when they discovered Peter also had strong personal affection for Wealthy Theatre because it was about Gordy Varneau and his parents.

Peter Wege led the campaign that raised $2.2 million allowing Wealthy Theatre to reopen in 1997 as a performing arts center.