Planting trees has become an important part of Kingo Lutheran Church’s service to the community. In 2017 when the Greater Milwaukee Synod planted over 500 trees for 500 years to commemorate the Reformation, Kingo, along with one of its partner congregations, All Peoples, planted a small orchard on 2nd and Locust. A couple of years later, Kingo and All Peoples added to the orchard which is currently producing fruit for the neighborhood.
Last year, the topic of planting trees came up again as plans were being made for our Advent special collection. But this time reality set in. Kingo is a small congregation with mostly active but older people. (This, however, is beginning to change as more younger people and children are coming.) As we thought about the work involved in buying and transporting the trees, digging the holes and then lugging gallon bottles of water to keep the new trees watered for at least three years, we realized it was too much.
…But then, the Holy Spirit stepped in with a new idea.
We learned about the Milwaukee Climate and Equity Plan. One aspect of this Plan is the Green Schools Consortium of Milwaukee involving Milwaukee Public Schools. To date, over 25 school playgrounds have been converted to expand tree canopies, reduce pavement coverage and install green spaces for rain absorption.
With this information in hand, Kingo chose to support the conversion of Story Elementary School’s playground. Projects of this size are expensive, and Story Elementary was no exception. Their target was to raise $867,500! What could little Kingo do? We loved the idea, especially because no hard physical work was involved. We simply had to raise money. The result was amazing: Kingo was able to raise over $5,000 for this project!
With the help of community partners like Kingo, work on the playground began this summer. We at Kingo are excited to monitor the progress and look forward to visiting the completed playground and seeing the children and neighbors enjoying their new habitat!
