Dear Friends,
My term as president of the Friends comes to a close at the end of this year, a bit later than planned due to the pandemic. When I started my 3 year commitment as president in Spring 2017, our major focus was on supporting completion of Phase 2 of the Garden boardwalk. Over the past 3-½ years the Friends also expanded its social media presence, registered for state sales tax exemption, and began a diversity-equity-inclusion (DEI) effort among many other activities. 

This difficult year has yielded some positive things for the Garden thanks to the efforts of the MPRB.  Safe visiting practices for the Garden were implemented, tested, and received positively.  The MPRB Garden naturalists pioneered outreach in informative and entertaining ways that have enriched our experience of the Garden, and MPRB Garden leadership has been prudent and laser-focused on providing a peaceful refuge from the unique challenges of 2020.

In October, the Friends held its first virtual annual members’ meeting and elected its Board of Directors for the coming year. We were pleased to have the best member attendance in many years, and hope to expand member participation in coming years as well

The Friends’ 2020 annual board meeting was also held virtually. Among the officers elected is the new president, Jennifer Olson. I am delighted that her leadership skills and passionate interest in the natural world will guide the Friends into a bright future. Members will hear more directly from her after her term begins January 1.

At the annual board meeting, a revised mission statement was proposed by the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) committee and adopted by the board. The revised mission statement underscores the Friends’ commitment to strive to be anti-racist, including how we might amplify voices of marginalized communities.

Dear Friends,
During this time of unrest, I have been thankful for the Garden, and enjoyed visiting there. I am immensely grateful for the leadership of the Garden Curator, Susan Wilkins and to others on the Park Board, who designed a way to open the Garden safely. And also for the Garden staff who bravely staff the areas where they encounter members of the public, possibly exposing themselves to the virus. I have been delighted by the Garden’s robust social media presence that has expanded by the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board on Facebook and Instagram during this time

This feeling contrasts with our community’s response to George Floyd’s killing on Memorial Day. This one act of terror has opened up awareness about the daily dangers and barriers faced by Black people in the United States. We are all learning more about the issues, and what it means to be anti-racist. As an organization the Friends are examining our relationships, our board function, and our membership and asking how can we better share those spaces with people of color? By the time this newsletter comes out, the board of the Friends will have met to continue those discussions. With more resources now available than in the past, and a more informed perspective, I believe we can take more concrete measures, including decisions on newsletter content. You may notice for example, on the Gentian’s back cover, we now acknowledge that the Garden is located on Dakota homelands, and this issue of the Gentian features an article by Friends’ board member Lauren Husting on Black Birders Week

Dear Friends,
Our thanks to the dedicated employees of the MPRB for their thoughtful responses to our public health emergency. The members of the park board are also tirelessly working to respond to this unprecedented situation. While our heroic health care workers,and health care facilities staff are working to care for those who are ill or injured during this upheaval, others take care of the health and well being of the rest of us. Institutions like the MPRB, the Minnesota DNR, the Three Rivers Parks District, the US Forest Service, US Department of the Interior, countless city and county and other local parks and recreation departments, and public gardens have absorbed the excess energy of home-bound school kids, and provided physical and mental space for those in need of a respite from too much togetherness at home.

These natural resources are necessary for our health, now more than ever. Opportunities to enjoy nature and take exercise outdoors can figure in all of our strategies to maintain health and optimism in the coming months. Minneapolis parks will be a great place to take a moment to remember that life is beautiful, impermanent and to be cherished so long as we can. Please, when you encounter parks workers in the coming weeks, go out of your way to thank them, from a safe distance. They are also helping to save us.

This newsletter carries a beautiful reflection from Garden Curator Susan Wilkins that helps soften the difficult separation from the Garden that we all feel. We also enjoy a lovely piece on the 50th anniversary of dedication of the Martha Crone Shelter. Most of the rest of this Gentian concerns climate change. It is a weighty topic for our little newsletter, but the subject directly impacts the Garden, and so is important for us to consider.

In 1982 one of my professors lectured about how excess carbon in the atmosphere had been altering climate. Background readings for the class described how climate change had been observed for many decades before that. It has been remarkable in recent years for me to hear people deny the reality of climate change as though it is a recent fabrication created for political reasons or for ratings by media.

In early February I went to a Mexican village called Zitácuaro. In the mountains nearby are sites where hundreds of thousands of monarch butterflies from Minnesota and further north spend winters, before setting out again northward.