Since 2007, Jim Egenrieder and his wife Diane Allemang have planted 2,108 trees in honor of Michelle.

...to Chris Kadlec for creating the www.michellegardnerquinn.com memorial website!

 

Beyond the French Quarter, is a short documentary produced by Danny Y. Huang and 7 other Williams College students during their visit to New Orleans over their spring break last year. This student production captures the unconventional accounts of youth volunteers in New Orleans.


MEF Board member and program director of MESUNOLA, Ian Willson, is featured in the film leading volunteers in MEF's sunflower phytoremediation project that began over a year and a half ago. Filmmaker Huang was looking to document areas of hope in areas of New Orleans that were still devastated and neglected a full three years after Katrina destroyed New Orleans.  In Ian and MEF's MESUNOLA project Huang found such hope where MEF has worked tirelessly on a completely all volunteer basis with some of the most under served and vulnerable populations of New Orleans. 

In short, MEF's sunflower phytoremediation project provides a clean energy efficient and sustainable means whereby sunflowers remove seriously harmful toxins such as lead from the soil for little to no cost.  The project is ongoing and is open to all all volunteers that would like to join our efforts.

 

On the anniversary of Michelle's murder this year Julia Martin, Hannah Sylvester and Adam Briere spent the weekend together at a lodge on Mt. Mansfield where they had been with Michelle on Transfer Trek, a UVM wilderness experience, two years earlier.

...to Burlington's Bridget Burns for putting together a benefit program of women musicians at the Monkey House and to Matt Perry of the OP Restaurant in Burlington, VT, for sponsoring a snowflake benefit fundraiser. Proceeds of both events went to Michelle's Earth Foundation.

 

Yasmine Rassam

On Sunday January 18, 2009, MEF volunteers Yasmine Rassam and others joined with volunteers from groups such as Arlingtonians for a Clean Environment and Arlington soccer players at Wakefield High School stadium field to pick up trash from along the fences and under the bleachers in honor of Martin Luther King Day of Service. The event was sponsored by USAService.org.

Earthfest-University of Vermont Supports Environmental Charitable Event in  Support of MEF, Burlington, VT

Recently home from her project in Quintana Roo, Mexico, H-B graduate Heather Spence spent an afternoon sharing her stories of coral reef conservation and educational outreach with students in H-B's Environmental and A.P. Biology classes. Sponsored by MEF, Heather worked on a project focusing on various activities related to the conservation of the Mesoamerican Reef System located in Mexico. She worked with the Mexican National Parks service on a new project to attract and provide habitat for juvenile lobsters in a protected area of the coast of Isla Mujeres.

Heather also wrote a book, Marine Life of the Mexican Caribbean, to familiarize students and tourists with the local coastal flora and fauna. This book is a bilingual activity book with facts, pictures to color, and questions to answer, as well as games. A presentation accompanies the book and both were presented to children at summer camps and to guests of two hotels.

Heather also directed a workshop where local school children wrote songs to celebrate their environment. She wants to have these songs played on the local radio station.

In the near future Heather hopes to develop a connection for students in Arlington to interact with students in Cancun through her website. Arlington students could then learn directly about the Mesoamerican reef system by interacting with Mexican school children.