Lake Superior Celebration is TONIGHT, April 11, at Great Lakes Research Center

 Poster courtesy Lake Superior Stewardship Initiative.

HOUGHTON -- All Are Invited to the Lake Superior Stewardship Initiative (LSSI)11-Year Celebration from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. Thursday, April 11, at Michigan Tech’s Great Lakes Research Center (GLRC). The event is FREE, family-friendly, and open to all.*

The Lake Superior Celebration will highlight the work of the Lake Superior Stewardship Initiative (LSSI), which brings schools and communities together in the stewardship of Lake Superior and its watershed. Displays and presentations by Barkell Elementary School, Washington Middle School, Dollar Bay-Tamarack City High School, and Copper Country ISD, in addition to informative displays by community organizations, local growers, and non-profits will be offered. Jerry Jondreau and Katy Bresette of the Keweenaw Bay Indian Community will have traditionally harvested and processed maple sugar and manoomin (wild rice) products.

At 6:30 p.m., LSSI school teams will offer presentations (Washington Middle School, Dollar Bay High School, CCISD Special Education). At 7 p.m., Dr. Valoree Gagnon, director, University-Indigenous Community Partnerships at the Great Lakes Research Center and Research Assistant Professor, Social Sciences, and Rachael Pressley, assistant regional planner, Western UP Planning and Development Region, will present on the Western UP Food Hub. Presentations are in 202 GLRC.

Students will get in on the fun and learning with a variety of hands-on activities including Tomato Planet, Making Butter, Posy Poetry, How Trees Grow.

The event will also feature LIVE Music with Handful of Humans with Sue Ellen Kingsley, Eric Munch, Norm Kendall and Shawn Oppliger, and the World Water Day art exhibit "Wilderness" featuring artists Daniel Hill, Josh Jaehnig and Jonathan Soper.

Light refreshments, including snacks, cake, lemonade and coffee will be provided.

The event is sponsored by the Lake Superior Stewardship Initiative, Michigan Tech Center for Science and Environmental Outreach, and the WUP MiSTEM Network with funding from the Great Lakes Stewardship Initiative.

For more information: contact:  Emily Gochis, Director, WUP MiSTEM Network at the Copper Country ISD at 482-0331 or egochis@copperisd.edu or Joan Chadde, Director, Michigan Tech Center for Science and Environmental Outreach, at 906-487-3341 or jchadde@mtu.edu .

Visit the Lake Superior Stewardship Initiative on the web here or on Facebook.

*Editor's Note: Joan Chadde has confirmed that this event will take place definitely in hopes that the winter storm waits.

KUUF to host "Eating Green" potluck and forum on growing and eating local food Sept. 15

HOUGHTON -- The Keweenaw Unitarian Universalist Fellowship will host a potluck and forum, "Eating Green," from 10:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. TOMORROW, Sunday, Sept. 15, at BHK Center Conference Room (1 block off M-26 -- turn at Hilltop Restaurant) in west Houghton. The presenters will be Barb Hardy, Western UP Food Hub, and Mark Pittillo, Portage Health Nutritional Services Director.

This forum will focus on the topic of growing and eating local foods and why we should care about our food sources. Learn about the goals of the Western UP Food Hub from Barb Hardy. Mark Piettillo will describe Portage Health's project with the Hancock schools and provide some ideas for how you can prepare your food once you've grown or bought "local."

The forum will be followed by a potluck meal of locally grown foods. (Please bring a card with the name of your dish and a list of locally grown ingredients in the dish.)

For hundreds of years gardens have been an American tradition. They provided people with sustenance and a more reliable means of survival than hunting or fishing. They often engaged all of the family members -- from working the soil in the spring to planting, weeding, and -- ultimately -- the fall harvest. The meals shared with others from the fruits of their labors helped to foster a sense of community. As we became more urbanized, and frozen and canned produce became plentiful, gardens were left behind, until "victory gardens" sprang up in response to the shortages of WW II. Gardens again provided a sense of community and a way to provide for families. Today, with concerns of food contamination by pesticides -- and the large environmental footprint of foods that travel sometimes thousands of miles across the country or around the world before arriving at our tables -- gardens have again become a popular activity. Gardens can be found not only in rural areas, but in many urban areas where community gardens, backyard gardens, window gardens, and rooftop gardens have increased in popularity.

Along with the desire to know where our food comes from, there is a growing awareness that diets which primarily depend upon plants are healthier and use less energy. Americans can save fossil fuels and make more plant protein available for human consumption by simply reducing the number of meals they eat containing meat.

With all of this in mind, the Keweenaw Unitarian Universalist Fellowship would like to encourage "growing our own" and sharing meals together. In that spirit, we have invited these two guest speakers and will host a congregational potluck made from local foods from individual and community gardens.

This event is open to all.