Rain Gardens to the Rescue

We are excited to get started with another year of rain gardens! We thank you for your support, and with funding through GlobalGiving and grant funding through the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, we were able to support and install a total of 16 rain gardens in Detroit, Dearborn, Redford and our first in the city of River Rouge in 2023. Through these garden installations, we engaged 225 volunteers in learning hands-on about rain gardens, native plants and stormwater management. Last year, the Rainscaping in Southeast Michigan mapper launched to highlight stormwater projects across the region and calculate their combined impact. It is a wonderful tool to encourage folks to find nearby gardens to visit and build a garden of their own to get on the map. Regional partners continue to upload past projects as well as adding new projects over time. We look forward to connecting and educating even more community members around rain gardens in 2024!

In January, FOTR staff installed large educational signage at past sites at schools, community centers and houses of worship to educate those groups and passersby about the rain garden, its function and purpose. Students and faculty at Thirkell School, where we installed a 600 sq ft garden in June 2023, were very excited for their sign as well as looking forward to seeing the garden grow in 2024. Even throughout the winter, the gardens are hard at work managing snowmelt and giving native insects a place to overwinter safely.

FOTR is currently receiving applications for 6 large-scale community rain gardens in Detroit’s 48217 zip code, Dearborn’s South End neighborhood and the City of River Rouge, communities that are disproportionately affected by industry pollution, are downstream and experience frequent flooding, have historically been disinvested in, and were hard-hit during the covid-19 pandemic. We will also be working and continuing to build trust and connections in these communities for our residential rain garden program scheduled for June 2024 and plan to award additional rain garden through an application process. We will advertise this course regionally as a free educational class for anyone interested in learning more about stormwater management, rain gardens and improving our local river and community health with native plants.

It is FOTR’s privilege to work with local advocates and stewards that uplift community voices, educate neighbors, and beautify their blocks. One of these shining stars is Carolyn Pruitt, who created her own nonprofit, My Community Speaks, to engage neighbors and bring them valuable and much needed resources. Carolyn built a rain garden at her home on Hartford Street in Detroit’s unnamed Southwest community in 2020 as well as a pollinator garden and large-scale rain garden across the street in subsequent years. On the open lots she purchased through the land bank, she has transformed them into LaNita’s Memorial Park in honor of her late mother, and with help from Friends of the Rouge, the rain garden is managing stormwater off the street, preventing future flooding as well as creating a beautiful space for local residents to enjoy and connect to nature. Carolyn and community members like her across the City of Detroit and Southeast Michigan have such passion and love for their neighborhoods that fuels our work and being able to help them where we can is our biggest joy! Thank you for your ongoing support of this work to improve stormwater management and environmental health across the Rouge River Watershed for all.

Links:

• Learn more about Rain Gardens to the Rescue
• Explore the Regional RainScaping Map
• Listen to Carolyn speak about her work in her community