your-december-rouge-park-newsletter-has-arrived

In This Issue:

Rouge Park Maintenance Tour - Nov. 15
Giving Tuesday is December 3rd!
FORP Holiday Party - Dec. 17 @ Starter's Bar & Grill
Mountain Bike Ramble - Nov. 17
Stewardship Update
Brennan Recreation Center Update
Upcoming Events

The Friends of Rouge Park Mission:

To protect, restore, and promote a natural, environmentally healthy, and culturally vibrant Rouge Park that engages the community for the benefit and enjoyment of all.

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Rouge Park Maintenance Tour - November 15

From front left: Kate Gmyrek, Chris Romeo, Kuwand Carpenter, Paula Trilety, Antonio Cosme, Paul Stark and Jerry Springs

On Friday November 15, the FORP board and staff took several members of the Detroit’s General Services Department (GSD) staff on a tour of Rouge Park to discuss how the park can be better maintained as we approach the park’s hundredth year celebration. This was a follow up to an initial meeting on October 23rd that also included GSD Director Crystal Perkins, Deputy Director Jerrell Harris and Councilman Fred Durhal. We discussed maintenance as well as park infrastructure needs, including projects like rehabilitating the Brennan Recreation Area comfort station (see photo below), demolishing the Tireman/Spinoza comfort station, repairing the six miles of paved walking trails, installing benches and more.

Downed AT&T line on Spinoza Drive

The tour included stops highlighting areas of overgrown roadways, sidewalks, and paved pathways in need of trimming, and more consistent mowing. Stops included the abandoned comfort station at Tireman and Spinoza, the closed comfort station and flooding parking lot at Brennan Rec. Area, downed AT&T lines and more. Rouge Park has lacked the equipment for mechanical brush removal along the roads and walkways but Kuwand Carpenter from Blight may be able to offer their equipment and staff to address this issue.

Following the meeting, Jerry Springs was able to get the two downed lines addressed! Some work has started to clear the sidewalks along Joy Road, making it much safer for pedestrians to travel along Joy Road. We have been told that there is no funding for the comfort stations or other projects. Please let the city know that Rouge Park needs investment. Millions of dollars have been spent to improve parks downtown.

Brennan Recreation Area Comfort Station - Closed, in need of repairs

Giving Tuesday is December 3rd!

Celebrate 100 Years of Rouge Park – Support Giving Tuesday Detroit!

This Giving Tuesday, we invite you to join us in celebrating a century of community, nature, and adventure at Rouge Park! For 100 years, Rouge Park has been a beloved space for outdoor recreation, family gatherings, and a hub for Detroiters to connect with nature. As we look toward 2025, we’re asking for your support to help preserve this park for future generations and continue our community-building programs.

How can you help?
We’re asking our members and supporters to donate $1 for every year you’ve enjoyed the park. If you've been part of Rouge Park’s history for 25 years, that’s a $25 donation. If you’ve enjoyed the park for decades, your gift could be $100 to mark the 100th anniversary of Rouge Park! Together, our collective support will make a huge impact.

What will your donation support?
Your contribution will directly benefit efforts to preserve Rouge Park and support community-building programming in 2025. These programs, including events like the Buffalo Soldiers & Blues Freedom Arts Fest, Rouge Park Appreciation Day, Rhythm & Rouge and others, help bring the community together to celebrate, learn, and grow. Funds raised will also go toward maintaining the park’s beautiful natural spaces and ensuring it remains a safe, accessible, and vibrant destination for all.

Donate Today: https://sharedetroit.org/nonprofit/friends-rouge-park

This year, as we mark the 100-year milestone of Rouge Park, we ask for your continued support to help make 2025 even better. Your donation, big or small, is an investment in the future of this park that we all cherish.

Thank you for being part of our Rouge Park family. With your help, we can make the next 100 years just as special as the first!

Friends of Rouge Park Holiday Party - Dec. 17

Join other Rouge Park lovers to celebrate the season and learn about what we accomplished this year as an organization, and what is in store for 2025! Dinner is courtesy of Friends of Rouge Park for all current members. Donations accepted.

RSVP HERE

Mountain Bike Ramble - Nov. 17

Over 30 participants joined us to tackle the trails, explore the beauty of Rouge Park, and share a love for the outdoors. From start to finish, it was a day filled with adventure, community, and fun!

We kicked things off with expert instruction from Luki Bike Adventures and the Michigan Scholastic Cycling Association, who helped riders of all skill levels get comfortable on the 3-mile Mountain Bike Trail. Whether it was learning new skills or taking on the challenging terrain, there was something for everyone to enjoy.

After working up an appetite, we fueled up with delicious food served by Marichona, while enjoying live music and connecting with fellow riders.

A huge shoutout to our incredible partners who made this event possible:

Wheelhouse Detroit
Detroit Mavericks
SOS Outreach
Detroit Outdoors
Motor City Mountain Biking Association

Your support helps us continue to grow and build a stronger biking community here in Detroit.

Thank you to all the participants for making this day memorable! We can’t wait to do it again next year and continue to build on the excitement.

November Reflection from the Land Stewardship Manager: Forgotten Fires

First fires: Fire has been used extensively by native peoples all across the Turtle Island (North America) since time immemorial. There is a fantastic book called Forgotten Fires and a podcast called “Good Fire” that I highly recommend. But in short, native peoples weren’t just moving through “the wild,” the precolonial forests didn’t just evolve that way through forest succession, but through eons of indigenous relationship to land. They used fire for hunting, to reduce pest habitat, increase berry production, clearing land for agriculture and more. Pre-Colonial ecosystems are better described as a managed food forest, or as a cultivated ecosystem than “the wild.” The primary tool of that cultivation was fire.

Our Fires: Here at Rouge Park, we have brought fire back in to manage a section of the prairie. Prairies are made up of tall grasses and native flowers which have very deep root systems. A burn removes the excess vegetation but does not harm the perennial roots of the plants and they actually come back more vigorously after a burn. The last prescribed burn we had here at Rouge Park was way back in spring of 2022. This spring will be 3 years since the last fire, there is plenty to burn! Our fires have been paid for by a partnership with the Huron-Clinton Metroparks contracted to a company called Restoring Nature with Fire. I work part-time, seasonally with the company. So I have some insider knowledge about this work.

Bad fire weather: While I don’t think Rouge Park was on the burn list this fall, the weather hasn’t cooperated. After a droughty end-of-summer, we moved into a very wet fall. To employ prescribed burns, the humidity must be below 50%. With little bits of rain every week, there have been perhaps 4 days where fires were possible!

Future Fires: We hope that this spring Rouge Park will be burnt again. But more broadly, as the city expands prairie habitat, green stormwater infrastructure and grasslands into more and more of these open green areas, I think the possibility (and from an indigenous perspective, the necessity) will outpace the partnerships and funding currently available. Detroit should make strategic investments into this ancient natural areas management tool. I hope that one day the city or the Detroit Parks Coalition takes on that work in its growing natural areas management. Here at Rouge Park, I want to expand the burning zone to the entire Oak Savannah complex, to the area west of Outer Drive from Joy to Warren. Maybe one Day we can really bring back this indigenous tool.

Next month's update will focus on deer!

Stewardship Updates

Fall has been such a beautiful season for stewardship until this last week when temps dropped and we got our first snow.. the weather has been wonderful, if only a bit wet until December.. We got a good bit of work done so far though!

We started the month off with a post-election workday & bonfire at Scout Hollow. The turnout was great and everyone was able to vent their frustrations and feelings with the election results out on the invasive species. The development of the youth child play area is going wonderfully! We hope to continue that work, please go check out the stick forts back there!

Invasive species identification is wonderful in fall as their green leaves stand out when most native species have shed theirs. Species like honeysuckle, a dominant invasive in our park, really stay green into late fall because they’re native to harsher Eurasian climates. Others like oriental bittersweet stand out in the canopy with their red chickpea looking seeds and the yellow capsules holding them. Each season really opens up different opportunities for managing invasive species. I made a presentation at the Detroit Parks Coalition gathering on invasive species, if you’d like to see that, please let me know! Message our instagram @friendsofrougepark or email me at [email protected].

We had another workday with partners; The Mission Continues, where we worked on the far end of the Scout Hollow Trail, near its exit at Brennan Pools. The mission in that action is to open up this area around a wetland that has been heavily overrun by invasive species. With the new recreation center coming to Rouge Park (from a generous donation from the Pistons owner Tom Gores), we will really focus on expanding that trail over the next year or so as the construction begins. We also plan to extend or revive the trail north of Rouge Parkway towards the Heron Rookery connecting to the front of the old Brennan Pools building. If you’re part of an organization that would like to volunteer in rouge park shoot me a message or DM our instagram!

We had another workday in the cherry orchard with our partners at the MSU Extension Detroit Partnership for Learning and Innovation aka the DPFLI. They taught us how to prune the cherry trees. We will be doing another tree planting there this spring!! Stay tuned.

With the cold weather, we are holding off on setting any dates for work days yet. If it warms up a bit, we may be able to squeeze in a day or two with a bonfire to keep warm. If you like to be outdoors (and know how to dress for it) and want to come out, email [email protected] and say you are interested in Winter Work Days and I will notify you if we find a good day.

Become A Steward

Brennan Recreation Center Update

Plans for the Pistons funded recreation center are moving along. In October, 19 trees were removed from the site to make way for the center. The city was able to reduce the tree loss from 25 to 19 and is saving the oak logs for use as furniture in the new center. Five trees will be planted in the park for each tree taken down. Ground breaking for the center is planned for this fall with completion late next year to early 2026.