Earth Day Blitz to Break Ground for New 27th Street Garden Park

A garden dream will come true this Earth Day, Wednesday April 22nd 2015 when volunteers from Wisconsin Landscape Contractors Association (WLCA), Metro Milwaukee Chapter break ground for a new Garden Park, with a ground- breaking ceremony planned for 1 pm that day featuring park project donors, WISN TV’s Mark Baden, Milwaukee Alderman Robert Bauman, and neighborhood residents and guests. Neighborhood House of Milwaukee, a west side community center, is developing the site on a vacant corner of W. 27th St. and Richardson Place as a new urban agriculture/urban park initiative with a mix of raised garden beds, play areas, a small amphitheater, and rain gardens. Summer program will utilize the new park extensively.

Current project funders include Forest County Potawatomi Community Foundation; Prairie Springs: The Paul Fleckenstein Trust; and a local family that has been long supported Neighborhood House’s environmental programs. Area WLCA landscapers generously donating time and materials for the project include: Hoppe Tree Service, Johnson Nurseries, ALCS, Beautiful Blooms Landscape & Design, Greener Roofs and Gardens, Jon Welch, The Farm, Aquatica, Landworks, Tom Shepard, Bryan Bergner, Darren’s Skid Steer Service, Jaime Dechamps, Matthew Schofield, and the Green Team of Wisconsin, Inc.

Jeff Martinka, Executive Director of Neighborhood House, expects this urban agriculture project to enhance the neighborhood, and give the community center a presence on W. 27th Street, an area poised for redevelopment. “This part of the city has very little parkland – our neighbors need more safe places for kids and families to come together. The Garden Park supporters are literally making this corner come to life” said Martinka. Neighborhood House is working with the City of Milwaukee, SHARP Literacy, Milwaukee Police Department, and other key partners to keep the site active, safe and crime-free.

This year’s Earth Day work blitz, an annual community service project of the WLCA, is spearheaded by Bradley Blaeser, whose landscaping firm The Green Team of Wisconsin, Inc. specializes in sustainable landscape management. Blaeser worked at Neighborhood House as an environmental educator from 2001-2007.