Page 18 – The Wege Foundation

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, 2010December 4, 2024Wege 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. 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.

NEW BLANDFORD LEADER HITS THE GROUND RUNNING

February 2, 2010September 2, 2014Education, Environment

Come see Brian Goblik's Top 75 Art Prize Piece: "Drawing of the Sun" — Come see Brian Goblik’s Top 75
Art Prize Piece:
“Drawing of the Sun”

Blandford Nature Center is an environmental, wildlife nature center and school in northwest Grand Rapids created in the 1960s. Several years ago Blandford’s chief funder, the Grand Rapids Public Museum Board, realized they could no longer afford to pay the bills. They turned to the Grand Rapids Public Schools, but the city’s schools were already fighting their own cash crisis.

With no other source of income, GRPS superintendent at the time, Bert Bleke, knew closing Blandford would be a huge loss to kids and the community. No longer could the thousands of visitors and school children come through to learn about wildlife, tap maple trees for syrup, learn zoology, study botany, and walk the nature trails.

Superintendent Bleke knew of only one person he could turn to. Today the staff and volunteers at the Nature Center are quick to tell you their doors would have closed without Peter Wege and The Wege Foundation. As Bleke put it, “In my mind, no Peter Wege—no Blandford Nature Center.”

Because Wege refused to let the nature school close down, every year all the 3rd, 6th, and 9th-grade students in the GRPS get to spend a school day at Blandford. “For many of these urban children,” Bleke said, “they never have the opportunity to be in nature.” In 2008, over 40,000 students from area school districts participated in field days and programs at Blandford.

In 2009, the 143-acre Blandford Nature Center went from being a city-county entity to becoming a non-profit supported by private donations. Peter Wege made a five-year commitment to help fund Blandford until 2014.

Annoesjka Steinman became the first executive director of Blandford in its non-profit status in the fall of 2009. Her background perfectly fits the newly evolved Blandford as a premier nature center that is paid for by community donations. With a background in environmental science and a history working for the Community Foundation of Muskegon County, Steinman understands both the natural science of Blandford Nature Center and the need to raise money for its ongoing support.

Steinman is already hard at work bringing in sixth-graders to help solve erosion problems on a stream bed near the Center’s main building. She also is moving forward with Blandford’s long-time leader Mary Jane Dockeray to fulfill Dockeray’s dream of creating an Ameuasian Meadow. The blooming meadow would be grown on Blandford land that was once a working farm.

Steinman is also pursuing an assessment of the former farm’s water quality hoping the ground water is clean enough to use if they expand the farm in the future. That would allow them to use their own free water.

By collaborating with the Center for Sustainability at Aquinas College and the Mixed Greens area gardeners and students, Steinman is continuing to keep Blandford, in its new non-profit status, the thriving community asset that Mary Jane Dockeray helped create.

The Kids Take on : TAKE BACK THE TAP

January 2, 2010September 2, 2014Education, Environment

Peter M. Wege has forever said that if this planet is to be saved, “The kids must do it.” He’s counting on the children pictured here at Ada Christian School in Grand Rapids to help promote the Take Back The Tap campaign The Wege Foundation has launched to end the sale of bottled water. These middle-schoolers saw photos where a colony of plastic bottles covers the ocean floor off the California coast.

The Wege Foundation gave each of these middle-school students the refillable water bottles they are holding emblazoned with the logo: Take Back The Tap. As part of their lesson they memorized the five reasons for taking back tap water as CHESS: Cheaper. Healthier. Earth-friendlier. Safer. Smarter.

Also read about -Vancouver Promotes Tap Water During Olympic Games

From the left: Lauren Bowman, Maria Betten, Elizabeth Schellenberg, volunteer teacher Laurie Sprague, Sam Van Hoven, Jessa Vander Weide, Megan Heynen, Lauren Postma, Adrianne France, Mackenzie Renner, and Allyson Korhorn.

Wege Foundation Sends Students to Inauguration

February 15, 2009September 3, 2014Education

Despite 1.9 million people squeezed together for hours in freezing weather on Inauguration Day, Tuesday, January 20, City High School senior Britany Benson said “everyone was in such good spirits…people of all ages and backgrounds, across the board—it didn’t matter. We all felt united.”

Britany and her classmate Bernard Schaefer II were part of that excited throng packed in front of the United States Capitol to watch former Senator Barack Obama place his hand on the Lincoln Bible. They needed to jump a fence to get close enough, but they heard the words that made Barack Obama the 44th President—and the first African-American.

The Wege Foundation sponsored the two high school seniors for the Inauguration, accompanied by the Foundation’s senior staff members Ellen Satterlee and Terri McCarthy. Mark VanPutten, an environmental consultant to the Foundation who lives in the Washington area, made arrangements for the four Grand Rapids visitors. Van Putten, named to one of President Obama’s environmental transition teams, rounded up tickets to the Inauguration, the Midwest Ball, and a meeting with Governor Jennifer Granholm complete with a picture of Britany and Bernard with the Michigan governor.

Besides the Inauguration itself, it was the students’ luncheon seminar with some of the nation’s leading environmentalists that had the most impact.

“Before I went to Washington,” Bernard Schaefer said, “I wanted to be a patent lawyer and maybe go to engineering school.” But after he heard national environmental figures like Jerome Ringo and Van Jones speak with such eloquence, Bernard changed his future on the spot. “They were so passionate about what they are doing.

“Now I want to be an environmental lawyer,” Bernard says with clear commitment. And not surprisingly, since his escort and friend Mark Van Putten teaches a class in that very subject at the University of Michigan, Bernard has his sights set on law school in Ann Arbor after either Michigan or Michigan State undergraduate school.

Britany Benson loves design, and she’s considering both architecture and becoming a clothes designer. But one thing for sure after her three days of Inauguration events, whatever she chooses, her career will be focused on preserving and protecting the environment.

Britany and Bernard spoke about the pride that all African-Americans, like themselves, expressed and celebrated together on Inauguration Day. Both of them knew from their grandparents the pain and suffering of racism. They fully understood the monumental significance of watching the son of a native Kenyan become the most powerful leader in the world.

They also understood how lucky they were to be part of that moment in history.

The above photo shows seniors Bernard and Britany poseing with Michigan’s Governor Jennifer Granholm at a Washington D.C. reception during Inauguration week.

britandbern — Bernard Schaefer II and Britany Benson are pictured with Peter Wege in The Wege Foundation conference room. The two seniors at City High/Middle School were bringing flowers to Mr. Wege thanking him for his gift of their once-in-a-lifetime experience in Washington D.C. to see the Inauguration of President Barack Obama January 20, 2009.

City High/Middle School Students Hit Economicology Turf

February 3, 2009September 3, 2014Education

Students are never too young to start learning how to compost!

To say the first economicology curriculum in town is up and running after one semester is not exactly true. Students at City High/Middle School have raced out of the gate to implement the principles of balancing the economy with the ecology. Peter Wege has advocated this philosophy since starting The Wege Foundation over 40 years ago, and he coined the term economicology to summarize it. The Wege Foundation is now sponsoring a premier Grand Rapids Public School to pioneer this environmental-financial approach to education.

And, to be precise, the first students whose classes are infused with economicology values actually jumped the starting gate before the doors opened in the fall of 2008. As school let out last spring, City High students in the Environmental Club decided they’d had enough of watching everyone’s lunch leftovers fill up trash bags. They needed to do something about it, and September was too far away.

Some of the E Club students actually followed garbage trucks and saw all their school’s food refuse end up in the dump. They recognized this as negative economicology. Pay for dumping and damage the environment. Their solution? Composting.

Over the summer they interviewed the food-service people at San Chez and the Grand Plaza Hotel knowing those restaurants both composted. They found out that environmental haulers named SPURT were the ones who did the composting. They also found out how strict SPURT’s rules are to ensure only food waste gets into the composting containers.

When school opened last fall, composting was in place at City High/Middle . No extra staff time (cost!) was needed because student volunteers did it all. Principal Dale Hovenkamp noted there was “a learning curve for a while.” Faculty and students had to learn how to sort and separate foods and dishware into the correct recycle bins.

By second semester 2009, after-lunch sorting was second nature. According to Principle Hovenkamp, the composting project has raised awareness for all the 620 seventh-through-twelfth grade students at the school on Fuller. “This is a very smart group of kids,” Hovenkamp makes clear. “They understand why we need to do these things.”

The ripple effect of this economicology transformation is already happening. East Grand Rapids High School students heard their friends from City High talking about it, and they wanted in. East students have now checked out how City’s composting program works…they plan to go therefore and do likewise at their own school.

Yet more to come at City High/Middle? A wind turbine. Boycotting the sale of bottled water. Using their compost on apple trees started in the school science labs to be planted on school property. Selling CFL (compact fluorescent Light bulbs) to save energy and raise money for more economicology projects.

No, the kids who jumped the gun last summer using economicology to make theirs a better world haven’t even made the first post around their track.

Brandie Perry from The Wege Foundation is shown with Dale Hovenkamp, principal of City High/Middle School–part of the Grand Rapids Public School System. The poster behind them represents the new economicology curriculum that started in the fall of 2008 and is being taught across the curriculum in all six grades, 7th-12th. Funded by The Wege Foundation, the curriculum is based on Peter Wege’s economicology principles that advocate a balance between the economy and the environment.