Help Flowering Tree School Waukegan, IL REOPEN

For the Students:

Imagine a school that is driven by your passions and curiosities. Imagine a school shaped by its students, molded in a genuine desire for learning, and fostered by educators who care more about acquiring knowledge than the competition of grades. IMAGINE A SCHOOL BEING FUN!

For the Parents:

Imagine a school where your kid jumps out of bed excited to go. Imagine having no limits to your child’s education. Imagine your child disappointed summer has arrived because they don’t want to miss school.

For the Educator:

Imagine a school that combines the educational philosophies of Gardner/Steiner/Collins/and Orange in a differentiated curriculum with documented state standard achievement.

This is Flowering Tree on the Back of the Great Turtle: Living History and Original Nations Educational Resource Center.

Founder Joe Russell III, FCT, OblSB, MEd, Social Studies

Joe Russell III, Flowering Tree founder, is bi-racial, (a member of the Arapahoe Nation–a tribal Winkta and elder, and African-American). Joe is a Master Educator with multiple graduate degrees, historian, stage costumer and tailor, and farmer.

Our Flowering Tree History & Programs

Flowering Tree was based at the historic St. Joseph's Church on 509 S. Martin Luther King Jr. Ave. Waukegan, Illinois until March 2019. Although we no longer operate at St. Joseph's, we continue to operate offsite at libraries and virtually.

Flowering Tree serves Pre-K to post-secondary students of various heritages, education needs & goals, providing differentiated and multi-curricular opportunities for students to participate in a global ag-educational format.

Flowering Tree's Agricultural-Educational program includes botany (plant science), biology, limnology (water systems) & urban farming: our social science curriculum includes history, geology, geography, cultures, and language-based textile art. Our Math department utilizes music education and vintage instruments to teach basic Math, Geometry, Arithmetic, and Algebra.

The Flowering Tree/St. Joseph’s Connection

 St. Joseph’s Church is historically significant to the City of Waukegan, IL and Lake County, IL as an immigration port of entry. During the last year of The American Civil War, the German nuns who staffed St. Joseph’s created a hub from which Lithuanian, German, Polish, Irish, and subsequently Puerto Rican immigrants joined and were inculcated into the extent of migrating freed African and Indigenous communities.

The inter-relationship of local cultures, inductive & non-secular scholastic approach, and food production within Waukegan’s only food desert (within the 1st ward) promises to revive hope, increase skill sets within the community, goodwill, and community building once Flowering Tree is allowed to return home.

 

We ask you to donate to this cause:

•to assist us with the cost of storing supplies/equipment until we secure a new location.

•for relocation to a new campus within Waukegan's 1st ward: our rooted place.

•to compensate staff and teachers during our curriculum re-innovation/restructuring.

Thank you for your consideration, support and prayers. Please donate to and share this campaign.