April showers will bring more than May flowers to the Guest House
| Published: 02/13/2012 |
|
MSOE architectural engineering students have designed and built a rainwater collection system at Cream City Gardens, an urban garden collaboration between the Guest House of Milwaukee and Friedens Community Ministries. Cream City Gardens will utilize the rainwater collection system to expand its existing garden system.
“I’m happy to have a community partner like MSOE invested in the Cream City Gardens project,” said Cindy Krahenbuhl, executive director of the Guest House of Milwaukee. “The rainwater collection system will not only conserve water and save energy, but it will also allow our Cream City Gardens project to grow, providing more produce for Guest House’s homeless individuals.”
The rainwater collection system consists of one 250 gallon tank and four 50 gallon barrels surrounded by a protective shed. The students will receive project management course credit for bringing the project to fruition. The project was made possible through MSOE’s Office of Servant-Leadership, which received a three-year Brady Corporation Foundation Inc. grant to exercise the tenants of Servant-Leadership through MSOE’s project management courses. Brady Corp. is providing financial and intellectual capital for Rader School of Business students to learn project management theory while engendering projects benefitting the greater Milwaukee community.
Click here to watch the Fox 6 news story about the project.
Since 1982, the Guest House has been creating solutions to homelessness in Milwaukee. The Guest House serves men in its emergency shelter with transitional housing programs, and serves men, women, and families in its permanent supportive housing programs. The Cream City Gardens project seeks to provide skills and experiences that will make participants in the garden more desirable as employees, improve the nourishment of the clients we serve and of those in the greater community, and build a neighborhood that will be more attractive to residents, community organizations, and businesses alike.
The Guest House and Friedens Community Ministries are United Way Partner Agencies. This project is just one of many that the United Way has identified at its partner agencies that will benefit the disadvantaged in the community, and also help students exercise the tenants of Servant-Leadership.
MSOE is an independent, non-profit university with 2,500 students. MSOE offers 18 bachelor’s degrees and nine master’s degrees in the engineering, engineering technology, building and infrastructure engineering, health-related engineering, computer, business and nursing fields. The university has a national academic reputation; longstanding ties to business and industry; dedicated professors with real-world experience; extremely high placement rates; and the highest starting salaries of any Wisconsin university according to PayScale Inc. MSOE graduates are well-rounded, technologically experienced and highly productive professionals and leaders.