Clean Wisconsin has been working with community partners in Milwaukee to mitigate urban flooding using green infrastructure — like rain barrels and rain gardens — for more than a decade. Now, a new partnership with Quad and ArtWorks for Milwaukee is bringing an added splash of color to Clean Wisconsin’s fight against urban flooding.
At the core of the partnership is a project that’s helping transform industrial barrels and readying them for use as rain barrels in Milwaukee neighborhoods that are especially vulnerable to flooding during heavy rain events.
Dee King, Quad MKE’s logistics coordinator and a driving force behind the project, says his own hands-on experience learning about sustainability via green infrastructure and community-based projects over the past decade was a huge motivating factor to connect with both Clean Wisconsin and ArtWorks. The fact that ArtWorks — a group dedicated to providing art internships for young people to help them develop lifelong career skills — has a presence in the same office building as both Clean Wisconsin and Quad made the partnership that much easier. 
“It’s about giving those young people a chance to contribute to green infrastructure and educate themselves and learn about environmentalism and sustainability and stewardship in a creative way that maybe they haven’t before,” King said.
Regardless of the interns’ experience creating art, the rain barrel project has given many of the interns a chance to further develop their creativity and deepen their understanding of how it can help uplift their communities.
“[Before the internship] I felt like I kind of gave up on art, and I needed a time and space where I could improve on my skills and also have a supportive environment,” Jenna Valdez, one of the ArtWorks interns, said.
“I have a preexisting interest in green infrastructure and the environment, and how the environment plays a role with all the buildings in Milwaukee because I want to study civil engineering,” they added. “I just think it’s interesting!”
Each of the 10 barrels donated to the project by Quad was meticulously painted by ArtWorks’ latest class of interns. From paintings of a majestic crane and happy pollinators to a vibrant depiction of a city skyline and fields of flowers, each barrel captures the important connection between Milwaukee’s land, water, and the people who depend on it in their own way.
For some interns, the project opened the door to new types of expression. 
“We just get to be creative with it, and I I like that,” intern September Swopes said. “We get to just be creative with an unconventional canvas.”
For others like Furaha Salvatory, the project helped show how everyone can make a difference in their community.
“The crane shows to me, I think of it as it showing wildlife and how it can return when we care for our environment in different ways,” she said. “Even though rain barrels are small, they’re kind of a powerful way to help the earth because they reduce flooding, pollution, and waterways by helping people in the community.”
Now that the barrels are finished, Clean Wisconsin and Quad are working together on a distribution plan to ensure the barrels provide maximum impact for the community. If you’re in the Milwaukee area, keep an eye out!
