Through the Green & Healthy Schools Program, Reflo works with the Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District and other partners to replace problematic schoolyard asphalt with green infrastructure—vibrant, nature-inspired landscapes that capture rainwater and reduce neighborhood flooding, increase urban biodiversity with trees and plants, and nurture students’ curiosity and critical thinking about our relationship to the environment. Reflo catalyzes an intentional community-driven design process that focuses on far more than managing water. These beautiful schoolyards transform the urban landscape surrounding the next generation of Milwaukee’s youth into a healthier one they—and the surrounding communities—deserve.

Through our Rainwater Harvesting for Urban Agriculture program, Reflo works with residents of under-resourced neighborhoods to capture rainwater to supply irrigation for urban gardens. An integrated water supply makes it easier for urban gardens to overflow with healthy vegetables for family tables—a counter-balance to the junk food too readily available in Milwaukee’s food deserts. A Reflo project at Alice’s Garden—one of the largest community-supported gardens in Milwaukee that engages in equity, spirituality, and community building—diverts stormwater runoff from an adjacent Milwaukee Public Schools asphalt schoolyard into a bioswale, then into an underground cistern. Urban farmers can now use a new solar-powered pump to draw this water for their crops.

Through our Innovative Placemaking program, Reflo thinks outside the box to help neighborhoods create meaningful spaces that enhance urban life. Collecting and managing rainwater is often the beginning of these projects but never the end. Working with the City of Milwaukee and various other partners including community-based nonprofits, Reflo has helped to transform spaces as diverse as a neighborhood pocket park (integrating an underground cistern beneath a new performing stage), a popular farmers market (pioneering stormwater management of the adjacent street into an old building foundation), and a post-industrial brownfield transformed into a verdant research and demonstration destination to showcase Milwaukee’s green infrastructure leadership.

The Milwaukee Water Stories program ties together Reflo’s mission-driven work, helping Milwaukee residents of all ages understand water as a valuable resource through engaging digital media products: interactive maps showcasing data and stories from community partners, a role-playing game inspired by Milwaukee’s water history, an adventure app like Pokemon GO for Milwaukee’s hidden water stories—and even the technologically marvelous Virtual Water Table that uses and Augmented Reality sandbox to teach watershed dynamics through a tactile experience. Reflo curates these and other resources for educators, students, partners, and motivated members of the public. It’s all about expanding Milwaukee’s “Water Choir” into a veritable “Water Chorus.”

Each year Reflo hires high school students for hands-on learning with tradespeople and content experts. The Environmental Interns are exposed to careers in construction, design, engineering, policy, communications, and environmental education. The interns learn about green infrastructure by making and maintaining it, participate in workshops and community events, and create projects using multiple woodworking tools and equipment to support Reflo’s other program areas. The Environmental Intern program is evolving for the 2021-’22 school year, so check back for details.