STEPS for Kids

About STEPS for Kids

admin — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 03:03:53 +0000

The Mission of STEPS is to provide healthy, educational and recreational programs for children and families in the Washtenaw County community.

Supporting Self-esteem
Teaching Skills and Values
Empowering, Encouraging Expression
Promoting the Positive
Striving for Success

Come help us plant!

Staff — Wed, 06 May 2009 01:44:27 +0000

Saturday May 16 we will be planting native plants to filter storm water before it runs into Montrio Pond. This will improve the quality of the water and the health of the wildlife. This will be fun! We’ll be outdoors with other kids and parents.

Kids who work earn $1-2/hr, high school kids earn $5/hr, adults volunteer.

Find us downhill from 2680 Adrienne Dr., off South Maple between Liberty and Pauline at Pinelake Cooperative.

Grants for Plants and Flowers

Staff — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 01:39:58 +0000

The Wildflower Association of Michigan is so happy with what we are doing at Montrio Pond that they have given us a $500 Hal and Jean Glassen award to buy more native flowers and bushes to plant next summer! The national Wild Ones Association felt the same way, and has awarded STEPS a Seeds for Education grant of $350.

We thank these organizations for keeping our environmenal activities possible for the summer.

We’re looking forward to more fun days for planting, with breaks for snacks and chats.

Watch for the summer announcements.

See real live fish up close

Staff — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 00:26:57 +0000

Learn about the fish in Montrio Pond. What makes them healthy and bright colored? What do they eat? Are they safe to catch and eat? Learn about other fish, too, that swim around here but may not be in the Pond.

Todd Crail, a naturalist from Toledo, will bring fish, and talk about ours. Next Monday, Presidents Day, no school, yay! 4:00 PM in the Pinelake Village Co-op office/clubhouse. 2680 Adrienne Dr, off South Maple between Liberty and Pauline. But if you live at Pinelake you are already there.

Bring your brothers, sisters, cousins, and school friends. Tell your parents they are invited if they behave.

The Little Rock Nine

charleene — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 21:02:58 +0000

The Little Rock Nine was a group of nine high school students. They were the first to attend an all white high school in Little Rock, Arkansas, in 1957. Although segregation was illegal at the time, many racist school systems employed scare tactics to prevent African American students from attending their schools. Central High School in Little Rock was one of those schools. The first day the students attended, the governor of Arkansas ordered the state’s National Guard to block the Little Rock Nine from entering. President Eisenhower retaliated by sending federal troops to protect the students. They received death threats, and were at the receiving end of a plethora of degrading deeds. They endured being spit on, being called names, among many other acts. However, even while having to experience such volatile conditions, most of the nine students bravely stayed in the Central High School until graduation. They did not give up. They challenged a racist system, and they beat it.

Morris Dees

charleene — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 20:37:56 +0000

Morris Dees (1936 - ?) is a lawyer who worked together with Joe Levin to build the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) in Montgomery, Alabama. Dees sold a successful law firm that he had created to take on civil rights cases. He was inspired to do this after witnessing his capable African American friends’ continued mistreatment. Even after legislation was being passed to aide African Americans, the South remained highly segregated. Before the creation of the SPLC, Dees took on many cases that were unpopular to other white people at the time. He filed a suit to integrate the all white Montgomery YMCA, and he also filed suit to stop the construction of an all white university in Alabama. Dees and Levin opened the non profit SPLC in 1971.

This Sunday–pond planting day

staff99 — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 20:25:18 +0000

Come help us plant water garden plants and butterfly garden plants an Sunday June first at 2:00 PM. We’ll also start clearing the brush at the other end of the pond. Our goal is to make a path that is easy to walk around. And of course, we always pick up trash. Everyone is welcome.

Rhinos

staff99 — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 20:24:49 +0000

The Serious Desert team visited north-west Namibia. There’s loads of wildlife in this area including gazelle, elephants, lions, leopards and black rhino of course. As well as spotting rhinos, the team saw zebra, giraffe and springbok. There are snakes and scorpions to watch out for too, as well as some pretty large desert beetles!

The Serious Desert mission involved helping to track the endangered black rhino. In the past 40 years the black rhino population in Africa has declined from 100,000 to about 3,000. The team helped vets to track rhinos and built a camel enclosure. Get more rhino information here:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/animals/conservation/rhinos/intro.shtml

Doris and Winthrop Sears, Livonia, MI

Staff — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 20:24:21 +0000

Doris and (the late) Winthrop Sears helped set up Livonia Citizens for Better Human Relations in the early 1960s in a Detroit suburb. The goal of this group was to protect and advance the civil rights of minorities: voting rights, free use of public facilities, school desegregation, communicating with the Civil Rights Commission and other federal programs, fair employment in Livonia and the Detroit suburbs, and improving community relations and services. This activist couple also worked to support Operation Open Door, a group whose goal was to open segregated Detroit and the surrounding suburban housing to African American families. Livonia Citizens for Better Human Relations was led by the Rev. Daniel Murphy of the Immaculate Heart of Mary parish in Detroit. Murphy and Livonia Citizens collaborated closely with a group called ACCESS, another group of community councils and clergy in northwest Detroit and the surrounding suburbs which combatted segregation in real estate. This is a story of real people in our neighborhoods, living their lives and making society better for us all. If you know of more such “unsung heroes” of civil rights, please send your story to us to post here. Unsung heroes may be folks of any race, religion, age, or job.

Joe Levin

charleene — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 21:01:55 +0000

Joe Levin (1943 - ?) is a founder of the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC). The SPLC is a non-profit organization that attempts to “combat hate, intolerance, and discrimination through education and litigation.” He was born in Montgomery, Alabama as the son of a lawyer. While in college at the University of Alabama, he observed the persecution of the editor of the school newspaper for advocating the move from segregation to integration in the south. The Ku Klux Klan went so far as to burn a cross outside the editor’s house, and Joe witnessed it. Since the SPLC’s inception in 1971, he has served several positions. As the legal director, he worked on more than 50 major civil rights cases. In 1979, Joe became a lawyer in Washington, but he continued to serve as president of the SPLC.