Please join Mayor Abramson, Brightside, and the Wiche family by recognizing local stewards who have made a commitment to preserve and improve the environment. Now in its 10th year, the award continues Fred Wiche’s legacy of promoting beautification and environmental consciousness.

Gardeners, garden clubs, teachers, schools, environmentalists, etc. are eligible to apply. 

There are two award categories –school and adult. The Fred Wiche Award, sponsored by Motorola, Inc. gives three cash awards for outstanding environmental stewardship projects in Louisville schools (public, private, or parochial). Environmental projects should be educational and involve full participation by students.

The winners will be announced in September 2008. The student winners will be recognized November 12, 2008.

First place winners receive $3,000, second place $2,000 and third place will receive $1000. The Adult Award recognizes the efforts of an individual or group in the Kentuckiana region whose environmental stewardship improves their neighborhood or community.

The adult award is open to residents and groups from Jefferson, Bullitt, Shelby, and Oldham, Kentucky counties; and Floyd, Clark, and Harrison, Indiana counties. The Adult category winner will receive a personalized piece of garden art valued at approximately $500. Brightside is Louisville’s non-profit organization dedicated to promoting environmental stewardship and beautification.
 
Congratulations to the 2007 Wiche Award Winners

Tim Baker, 2007 Adult Division Recipient – Tim Baker is the environmental education teacher at Meyzeek Middle School located at 828 South Jackson Street in the Smoketown neighborhood. As the school’s environmental education coordinator, Mr. Baker encourages his colleagues and students to experience the natural world and works tirelessly to provide opportunities to provide safe, accessible and engaging opportunities. He teaches classes in the garden and has an after-school gardening club. Students see the fruits of their labor – literally! Newly introduced to freshly grown fruits and vegetables, students begin to make connections between the environment and food production. He was instrumental in helping ACTIVE LOUISVILLE establish the St. Peter Claver Community Garden which is used by Meyzeek Middle School students and residents in the Smoketown and Shelby Park neighborhoods.

Maryhurst School, 2007 School Division Recipient, First Place $2,500 - Maryhurst School is a residential school for young women ages 11 to 18 with a student body of about 60 to 70 girls. The school is located in eastern Jefferson County. They have had a Japanese garden and comprehensive outdoor environmental classroom for five years. They received $2,500 as first place winners of the Brightside/Fred Wiche Award. Plans are to use the funds for an additional outdoor program. The garden program has given students higher self-esteem and, as a result, many of the students have entered traditional schools. “Nature has truly been a nurturing factor in the lives of these young women,” said Mari Renn, project director and art teacher at Maryhurst School. Maryhurst school is also the second place recipient of the Brightside Keep It Clean grant this year.

J. Graham Brown School, 2007 School Division Recipient, Second Place $1,000 – The J. Graham Brown School located in downtown Louisville is a magnet school for self-directed learning. It is the only kindergarten through twelfth grade school in Jefferson County Public School System. Located on First Street between Muhammad Ali and Chestnut, the Brown School is surrounded by buildings, a parking garage and I-65. As a result, students have to take field trips to explore the outdoors. The only outdoor space is a concrete courtyard. Plans are to use the Wiche Award grant to convert the courtyard into an outdoor classroom with construction of raised beds for plants, teaching stations with trees and construction of a wooden pergola to add plant material which will provide needed shade and form a natural walkway of native climbing plants.

Stephen Foster Academy, 2007 School Division Recipient, Third Place $500 – The Stephen Foster Academy is an elementary school located in Louisville’s west end area They have an existing outdoor classroom garden established last year. With the Wiche grant, the school plans to build a pioneer garden as part of their new outdoor classroom. The garden will be designed to represent the kinds of gardens planted by American pioneers. Plants will include popcorn, gourds, blackberries, beans and potatoes. They plan to add fencing similar to type made by early Americans. In addition books will be purchased about the lives of pioneers, history, gardening, plant science, animal science and weather to give students a hands-on learning experience.

2007 “Keep It Clean” Anti-Litter Campaign Grant Recipients

Brightside also gave three local high schools cash grants and a student scholarship as part of Brightside’s “Keep It Clean” anti-litter campaign. One of Brightside’s “Keep It Clean” campaign goals is to change people’s behavior so that litter is not a problem for future generations. The grant period was from January to May of 2007. In addition, participating schools nominated a student who took a leadership role in campus anti-litter projects for a $500 scholarship. The high schools earned points by organizing cleanups, involving parents and teachers in cleanups and conducting campus awareness campaigns utilizing school media outlets. The three top-performing schools to earn “Brightside School of Distinction” grants were Eastern High School, first place, a $1,500 grant (second consecutive year as first place recipient) Maryhurst School, second place, a $1,000 grant (new to earn a top school of distinction) J. Graham Brown School, third place, a $700 grant (won second place in 2006) Christopher Judy, student from Eastern High School, $500 scholarship Christopher Judy received a $500 scholarship for volunteer efforts at Eastern High School. He has contributed more than 160 hours, all on weekends, days when school is not in session and after school, cleaning areas, planting trees, picking up trash and organizing events. He was the key player in a project that planted over 1,700 trees in Miles Park. He helped organize students and then oversaw the planting at Miles Park. He organizes school litter pick up every Friday and has organized cleanups at the park in Middletown.
 
                          “Extra Mile” Award
Mayor Abramson and Brightside honored Bob Fleck, who is the DUI Division Chief of Jefferson County Attorney’s Office with the “Extra Mile” award for keeping Louisville’s roadsides clean. Similar to the state’s “adopt a highway” program, local organizations and businesses take a section of a Louisville roadway and keep it clean year-round. Bob has gone the “extra mile” for several years by setting up and implementing a trash pickup program for first-time DUI offenders. Not only does he manage this program, but he also picks up litter with the groups. He is focused in targeting problem areas for picking up trash. During the spring of this year, this program has removed over 4.6 tons of litter from Louisville streets.