You Can Help Build the
Mill Creek Greenway Trail -
Phase 3 Is Now Underway!
Your year-end donation to Mill Creek Restoration Project (MCRP) will directly support construction of 1.5 miles of the Mill Creek Greenway Trail over the next month AND help to leverage a $405,000 Clean Ohio Trail Fund grant to reimburse MCRP for 75% of the total design and construction cost!
The Clean Ohio grant has been approved, but MCRP must raise another $10,000 from individuals and businesses by December 31 to be eligible for the funds. Click HERE to make a secure credit card donation online, or mail a gift to MCRP, 1617 Elmore Court, Cincinnati, Ohio 45223. Thanks for your investment in the Mill Creek Greenway!
click on map to enlarge/zoom
Bicyclist on the Mill Creek Greenway Trail, Summer 2011.
Queen City Art Racks for Mill Creek Greenway Trail
MCRP is collaborating with ArtWorks, Human Nature, and artist Chris Daniel to create unique bicycle racks that will be installed at the Salway Park trailhead in early 2012. The trailhead is located next to the Old Timber Inn, near the intersection of Spring Grove and Crawford Avenues, and across the street from the Spring Grove Cemetery. MCRP thanks Trek Bicycles, Montgomery Cyclery, and Oakley Cycles for helping to underwrite this special project, and we always welcome the opportunity to work with ArtWorks!
2011 Mill Creek Greenway Program
Special thanks to:
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The major financial partners for the greenway program, including MCRP Donors, the City of Cincinnati, Clean Ohio Trail Fund, Duke Energy Foundation, Greater Cincinnati Foundation, William and Mary Jane Helms Charitable Trust, and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, through a Community Challenge Planning Grant to the City Department of Planning and Buildings.
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The outstanding students and teachers who participated this year in Mill Creek service learning projects; and the amazing civic volunteers who helped with greenway fieldwork from the Greater Cincinnati Rain Garden Alliance, Go Cincinnati, Ohio State University-Hamilton County Master Gardeners Program, and Great Outdoor Weekend.
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The Mill Creek Valley Conservancy District, the City, and Duke Energy for their permission to build the Mill Creek Greenway Trail on their properties.
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The National Park Service Rivers, Trails and Conservation Assistance for its technical support; and the U.S. EPA, River Network, and Groundwork USA for providing urban river training opportunities.
Spring 2011 Service Learning: St. James of the Valley students help build a rock swale to improve drainage to the Laughing Brook wetland in Salway Park, located across the street from the Spring Grove Cemetery.
Mill Creek Environmental Education Program
This newsletter has a pictorial sampling of educational activities that took place during the year. (Click HERE to see more photos on MCRP’s website.)
Spring 2011: Students from the Academy of World Languages use a kick seine net in Sharon Creek, inside Sharon Woods, to collect Benthic Macroinvertebrates. Macroinvertebrates are small spineless insects that live at the bottom of streams. They are an important part of the aquatic food chain and a good indicator of water quality. Hamilton County Park District staff Tracy Sparks, on the left, assists the students.
Spring 2011: Winton Montessori students learn about Mill Creek water quality along Salway Park - and proudly model their safety glasses!
Spring 2011: Reading Central Elementary students spread mulch on the Mill Creek native species garden at the Northside Freedom Tree grove.
Summer 2011: MCRP’s summer intern Ira Ulmer was a great help with fieldwork. Funding for his work came from the City of Cincinnati 2011 Summer Youth Employment Program, and under the generous auspices of the Easter Seals Work Resource Center. In addition, the Niehoff Urban Design Studio generously provided a paid undergraduate urban planning student Adrian Vainisi during the summer who helped plan a major cleanup and fieldwork day along Mill Creek.
Fall 2011: Clark Montessori students prepare cardboard for placing on the ground around all of the native plants, trees and shrubs within the Northside Freedom Tree grove. Next, they spread a heavy layer of mulch over the cardboard – providing a cost-effective, eco-friendly, and effective method for preventing invasive weeds from growing!
Fall 2011: Gamble Montessori students install a black fabric over a Mill Creek streambank along the Mill Creek Greenway Trail. This area is plagued with Poison Hemlock, a highly invasive plant. The black material blocks the Poison Hemlock from growing. In summer, the sun heats up the fabric, baking and destroying the Poison Hemlock root systems. Thanks to Marvin’s Organic Gardens for this great tip!
MCRP’s major funding partners: MCRP individual and business donors, the Metropolitan Sewer District, the Compton Foundation, Marvin's Organic Gardens, and the Dow Chemical Company.
Mill Creek Student Congress: Norwood Middle School students take a guided tour of the Lower Mill Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant during the Mill Creek Student Congress, hosted by the Metropolitan Sewer District in May. Over 425 students, teachers and environmental volunteers participated in this all-day event.
Melody Wolf – Edible Gardens and Healthy Living
MCRP welcomes Melody Wolf who joined our educational program staff in September. Melody is a gifted artist and gardener. She is working on edible gardens with five Cincinnati Public Schools and helping to evaluate the potential for adding fruit trees and edible gardens along the Mill Creek Greenway Trail. Melody comes to MCRP under the auspices of the AmeriCorps Program, through the collaboration and generosity of the Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC).
Community Leaders Join Mill Creek Restoration Project Board of Trustees
MCRP warmly welcomes four new board members whose terms begin on January 1, 2012:
Calvin Green is the President of the International Sustainability Institute of Applied Sciences. Calvin is an environmental engineer and scientist with expertise in wastewater treatment and a special interest in water quality and aquatic biology. He is retired from the Procter & Gamble Company where he worked for over 25 years.
Shawn Hesse is an architect with Emersion Design, an active volunteer with the U.S. Green Building Council, and an expert practitioner and educator in the field of sustainability and green building. He is an adjunct faculty member at the University of Cincinnati and at Cincinnati State Technical and Community College where he teaches sustainability courses.
Kathy Schwab is the Executive Director of the Local Initiatives Support Corporation, a national nonprofit intermediary organization that helps resident-led, community-based development organizations transform distressed communities. A life-long urban advocate, Kathy has over 30 years of real estate experience in Greater Cincinnati in both for-profit and nonprofit development.
Dr. Robert (Bob) Siegel is Medical Director of the Children's Hospital Center for Better Health and Nutrition, a comprehensive childhood obesity treatment, management and prevention arm of the Heart Institute. He is also a Professor of Clinical Pediatrics at the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine and likes to ride his bike on the Mill Creek Greenway Trail.
Mill Creek Restoration Project Appointed National Urban Waters Fellow
Mill Creek Restoration Project (MCRP) is one of ten organizations selected through a national competitive process earlier this year to serve as an Urban Waters Fellow for the new Urban Waters Training Network. The Network is cosponsored by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and by two national nonprofits, River Network and Groundwork USA.
Over a two-year period, the fellowship program will offer training in capacity-building and urban river regeneration strategies. In return, MCRP will serve as a peer mentor to other Training Network Fellows and urban river organizations in the country. For more information on the Urban Waters Program, click HERE.
“Those of us who understand the complex concept of the environment have the burden to act. We must not tire, we must not give up, we must persist.” Wangari Maathai, The Green Belt Movement, 2004. Photo by Martin Rowe, 2002.
In Memoriam
It was with great sadness that the world learned of the passing of Professor Wangari Maathai in September. Professor Maathai was a 2004 recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize for her environmental restoration work in her native Kenya and in other parts of Africa, and for her indefatigable advocacy of democracy, human rights, and the empowerment of women.
She was an ardent supporter of grassroots and community-based organizations and helped to found the Green Belt Movement that has planted over 45 million tree seedlings in her ecologically ravaged country and in other parts of Africa.
Wangari Maathai and her work to protect “our common home and future” will not be forgotten. At MCRP, she continues to inspire our environmental education for youth; our cross sector engagement of people, businesses and organizations in collective work to regenerate our urban river and revitalize Mill Creek neighborhoods and communities; and most especially in our reforestation of land along Mill Creek, on school campuses, and in neighborhoods and communities within and near the river corridor.
Mill Creek Environmental Education Program: Arlington Heights Academy students plant Mill Creek Freedom Trees at Memorial Field in Lincoln Heights.
What Your Donation Supports
Mill Creek Restoration Project (MCRP) is a dynamic nonprofit created in 1994 whose work focuses on youth, environmental education, clean water, planting trees, building trails, revitalizing neighborhoods, and engaging the public in river improvements. To date, MCRP has provided year-round environmental education programming for over 25,000 students and has completed twenty-four projects to regenerate and enhance wildlife habitat, wetlands, streambanks and floodplains along the river and its tributary streams. Our critical work to ensure a more sustainable future is made possible by generous donors and volunteers like you. We welcome and appreciate your support! MCRP is a tax exempt 501(c)3 nonprofit. Donations are tax deductible to the fullest extent allowed by law.
Charitable Shopping
If you plan to shop online this holiday season, MCRP asks you to please consider using the online shopping mall GoodShop.com, where you can visit more than 2,400 top online retailers. A percentage of your purchases (with no extra cost to you) will go to Mill Creek Restoration Project, if you designate MCRP as your charity.
Here’s how:
Go to www.goodshop.com. At the top right of the page, fill in "Mill Creek Restoration Project" in the vacant white space above "Get Started" and begin shopping as usual.
Mill Creek Restoration Project (MCRP) would also appreciate it if you would make GoodSearch your home page for searching, again at no cost to you. Simply go to goodsearch.com. Click on the 'tools” drop down menu. At the bottom of the menu click “options.” In the main screen of the options menu there will be a text area that should have "goodsearch.com" written in. If you click “use current as homepage” it will automatically change your homepage. Good Search will make a donation to MCRP every time you search the internet! Thanks for your support.
