Clean up and explore Mounds Park with FMR's Youth Advisory Council

Our work takes place on Dakota homelands. Learn more.

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This event is being organized and hosted by FMR's Environmental Stewardship Institute Youth Advisory Council, a group of high school students passionate about protecting the environment and interested in developing skills related to careers in the environmental field. Organizing this event is teaching them how to effectively plan an event that positively impacts our local environment and community.

Indian Mounds Regional Park (Makapaha in the Dakota language) is a burial site, home to six of the remaining burial mounds made by the Indigenous people of this region. Fifty or more mounds once sat atop the bluff, overlooking Wakáŋ Tipi, "dwelling place of the sacred" in the Dakota language, and future site of the Wakáŋ Tipi Center at Bruce Vento Nature Sanctuary. The mounds make this whole region a sacred place to many Indigenous communities throughout the midwest.

While FMR works to restore this blufftop prairie, we need to acknowledge the long history and sacred nature of this site. We encourage you to learn more from our partners at Lower Phalen Creek Project.

Volunteers will pick up trash, in order to reduce pollution and harm to wildlife in the park and nearby Mississippi River, as well as to make the area more beautiful. Our guest speaker Crystal Norcross will lead a guided walk throughout the park and educate volunteers on its rich history. Crystal Norcross is a community organizer and the Board President of the Native Minnesotan arts and social justice organization Oyate Hotanin, and she will be sharing her experience working to get the site recognized as a sacred cemetery.

Light snacks and refreshments will be provided. This event is open to volunteers of all ages.

Accessibility

Mounds Park has some steep terrain, but paved paths are available throughout most of the park, and volunteers will be able to remain on the paved path for the entirety of the guided walk if they so choose. The activity will not be strenuous, and volunteers will be able to take breaks as needed.

Ready to register?

To sign up and receive directions to the meeting spot, contact FMR Volunteer & Outreach Coordinator Sophie Downey at volunteer@fmr.org, 651-222-2193 x27. Please include the name of the event, your name, address, phone number and the number in your party.

You will receive a confirmation email from volunteer@fmr.org within two business days. (If you don't, please check your Spam or Promotions folder.) 

If you're under 18 and interested in volunteering without the company of your parent or guardian, please take a moment and have them fill out this brief minor permission form.

Can't make it?

To receive notices of future volunteer events, contact FMR Volunteer & Outreach Coordinator Sophie Downey at volunteer@fmr.org. Or, visit our Events Calendar for our most up-to-date listing of upcoming events. To receive a twice-a-month e-newsletter including all FMR activities and news, sign up for Mississippi Messages.

What about COVID-19?

We're watching the CDC and Minnesota Department of Health guidelines closely. If plans change based on their recommendations, FMR Volunteer & Outreach Coordinator Sophie Downey will email registrants with event updates. (Be sure to add volunteer@fmr.org to your contacts so updates don't land in spam.) And we'll update this page if anything changes. (You can read more about our policies here.)

We will offer gloves and hand sanitizer at the event. Volunteers are encouraged to bring their own masks and wear them when in close proximity to others.

About ESI

FMR's Environmental Stewardship Institute (ESI) fosters a diverse next generation of environmental leaders through an immersive program of local river issues and professional development that supports an interdisciplinary exploration of the environmental field. This program is largely supported by Capitol Region Watershed District.