2023 Pull-A-Thon Team Fundraising Goal: $1,000.00

Pounds Pulled to-date: 2,430

Donations/Sponsorships Received to-date: $0

As a Land Trust, River Revitalization Foundation is dedicated to establishing a parkway for public access, walkways, recreation and education, bordering the Milwaukee, Menomonee and Kinnickinnic Rivers; to use the rivers to revitalize surrounding neighborhoods; and to improve water quality.

Our stewardship team is tirelessly removing invasive species on our property and county parkland throughout the Milwaukee River Greenway, to improve the habitat for wildlife. Additionally, we plant and seed a wide-range of native species to increase biodiversity.

It is vital to invest in the preservation of these verdant greenspaces that are limited in densely populated urban areas. These same lands were neglected for years until the revival of the environmental movement in Milwaukee. RRF and the lands we manage need your help! Please consider joining our Garlic Mustard Pull-a-Thon team or making a donation to our team! We are the past champs of 2017 and 2018---pulling just over 17,000 lbs collectively! 

We look forward to being the champion again in the future. In the meantime though, our staff and volunteers will happily keep plucking away the garlic mustard and dame's rocket. We just can't quit;  We love our public lands!"

RRF Team Pull-A-Thon Workdays on our properties into June:

Monday: 2:00-4:00 p.m., Friday 1:00-4:00 p.m., and 1st and 2nd Saturdays of the month: 9:00 a.m. - Noon.

Contact Team Leader, Joanna Demas, to sign up!

Garlic Mustard

Poem by Bill Embly, River Revitalization Foundation FORB volunteer

My first experience of garlic mustard

was in Girl Scout Ravine,

working with the Friends of Lake Park.

Garlic mustard is an invasive species

and not too particular about where it grows:

ravines, flood plains, river banks and savannas.

Native species decline when garlic mustard moves in.

I was standing hip deep in garlic mustard

on the east bank of the Milwaukee River

when a young man from Sun Prairie,

fishing for salmon, asked what I was doing.

I’m rooting out garlic mustard as a volunteer

for the Urban Ecology Center.

We do something on the west bank of the river

as volunteers for the River Revitalization Foundation.

If you’re reading this you might think about volunteering,

or joining a team for the SEWISC Pull-a-thon.

Though the Pull-a-thon is a contest, the ultimate contest 

is between garlic mustard and our collective effort.

As I learned in Girl Scout Ravine,

when rooting out garlic mustard you must get the root,

otherwise it’s only dead weight that returns in the spring.