MILWAUKEE — Milwaukee Recreation held its Partnership for the Arts and Humanities Showcase Friday at North Division High School, bringing together students and community organizations to celebrate arts education in Milwaukee.

The event featured performances, visual art, and cultural programming from a range of partner organizations that work with Milwaukee students before and after school, on weekends, and during the summer.

Ariana Holmes, a recreation supervisor with Milwaukee Recreation, said the showcase highlights the breadth of arts and humanities programming available to young people across the city.

Watch: Milwaukee Recreation hosts youth arts and humanities showcase

Youth Arts and Humanities showcase underway

“This is one of our programs out of many, many at Milwaukee Recreation, but it centers a celebration of arts and humanities in our before and after school programming,” Holmes said. “All of the partners that you see here today, they run programs with Milwaukee students after school, on the weekends, during the summer, making sure that every kid in Milwaukee has access to really wonderful arts and humanities education.”

Organizations represented at the event included Bembe Drum and Dance, Woodland Pattern, All Hands Boat Works, and Running Rebels, among others.

“We have such a wonderful range that really celebrates the diversity that is the arts and humanities,” Holmes said. “We have Bembe Drum and Dance, they’re drumming for us and dancing on stage right now. We have Woodland Pattern, who does poetry with young people in Milwaukee. We have organizations that help build boats with young people, All Hands Boat Works, really just an incredible range.”

Students can sign up for the programs through Milwaukee Recreation, which connects them with partner organizations that run programming both in schools and at their own locations. Holmes said an arts internship for high schoolers is planned for the summer.

“This summer, we’ll be doing an arts internship for older kids, high schoolers to be engaged in arts, so it really is just like a really wonderful diversity of experiences,” Holmes said.

Information about Milwaukee Recreation programs is available through the organization’s printed guides, which are mailed to Milwaukee residents. Residents are encouraged to pick up the guides and explore opportunities for their children to get involved.

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MILWAUKEE — Five teenagers were arrested on Thursday following a police pursuit that started on the 5500 block of W. Silver Spring Drive at around 10 a.m.

The teenagers were seen by the Milwaukee Police Department in a wanted vehicle that was involved in an armed robbery, and attempted to stop the vehicle.

The driver refused to stop, starting the police pursuit.

The pursuit ended when the suspect exited the vehicle and started to run on foot on W. Appleton Place, according to MPD.

MPD then arrested a 16-year-old female, a 16-year-old male, two 17-year-old females, and a 15-year-old male.

Criminal charges will be referred to the Milwaukee County District Attorney’s Office.

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BY ALEXANDRA G STAHL AND AMRITA THAKKAR

Every year, Milwaukee Riverkeeper organizes one of the biggest volunteer-led cleanups in the city – a gargantuan effort that has Milwaukeeans out in droves to clean up the Milwaukee, Menomonee and Kinnickinnic rivers after the first of the spring rains. The science-based advocacy organization works for clean, swimmable, fishable and drinkable water in the Milwaukee River Basin year-round, but April is their biggest push, as they set up what is likely the largest volunteer-led event in the state. 

For their 31st annual cleanup on April 25, however, the Riverkeepers had a goal that dwarfed every previous year – they wanted to break the world record for the world’s biggest river cleanup. With 124 clean-up sites this year (versus last year’s 100), they were confident that they had a good chance at the title. 

“The people’s power is something pretty spectacular,” says Jennifer Bolger Breceda, executive director of Milwaukee Riverkeeper. “Our spring cleanup is really kind of a kickoff of spring to a lot of people. We have a lot of nuisance pollution in Milwaukee because of our winters, and the snow covers up a lot of the trash for a significant period of time. When it melts it becomes pretty noticeable, so it’s a perfect time to get out there and do the cleanup.”

Tru Earth, the presenting sponsor of the cleanup, originally approached Riverkeeper with the idea of breaking a world record, aiming to see if the title already existed or if they could create one. The organizations reached out to Guinness World Records, and it turned out there was already an existing world record for “Most Participants in a River Clean-up (multiple locations).” The record had previously been set at a cleanup of the Taff River in the United Kingdom, with 1,327 participants. 

But applying to break the record was the easy part – once Guinness was on board, the real work began. The record had to be judged against the previous record, and it had to be done exactly the same way.

“We had to train more volunteers to support our other volunteers, to watch, witness and adjudicate them,” explains Bolger Breceda. “We also had an adjudicator from Guinness present on the day of the event.”

The extra layer caused some logistical challenges. While previous events were more casual, with volunteers showing up in their own time, Riverkeeper requested that volunteers show up early this year so everyone could start at 9 a.m. Every site captain was added to a text message chain, so that all sites started work at the same time. 

The event drew over 4,923 volunteers and ended up with approximately 111,452 pounds of trash collected. While Guinness only counted 2,082 people due to their own adjudication standards, it still easily surpassed the previous record.

While Riverkeeper called for pre-registrations well in advance so they could organize for supplies, Bolger Breceda says that they didn’t put in any extra effort into recruiting the record-breaking number. “With the flooding and the rains a couple weeks before the clean-up, as well as the storm last August, people really wanted to clean up the river,” she explains. “There was a lot of trash, debris and litter, and the demand to clean, so to speak, was high.”

As always, the clean-up resulted in a number of strange finds – three toilets, two mattresses, five fire extinguishers, 39 tires, 11 construction barrels, six construction signs, six shopping carts, a golf bag with clubs and even a wheelchair. 

The record was announced at Rock the Green at the Harley-Davidson Museum later that day. “It was a lot of work, but it was worth it to put Milwaukee on the map,” says Bolger Breceda.