2024 Best Friend of the Rouge Award Winners

Jessica Eiland Anders

Presented by Karen Hanna, Operations Director

It is my privilege to stand here today to honor an exceptional leader, a tireless advocate for our mission, and a true Best Friend of the Rouge — our Board President, Jessica Eiland Anders. Jessica joined our board in 2021 and was elected President shortly after, in 2023. Since that time, Jessica has led Friends of the Rouge through organizational growth, changes, and the continuous challenges facing non-profits like ours. And she does it all with a big smile on her face.

Last year really put Jessica’s leadership skills to the test. Friends of the Rouge was faced with one of the biggest transition an organization can face, the resignation of our Executive Director. It is in the times of most need that a true leader shows her strengths.

Aside from making herself available to staff for anything that we needed during this time, she spent countless hours planning and preparing the organization for the ED’s departure while simultaneously searching for a new leader. She was able to sense how this sudden and unforeseen change was impacting the staff and made sure that we all felt safe sharing our thoughts and ideas with her.

She made sure that the process was transparent and inclusive, involving staff leadership in candidate interviews, and valuing our hopes, thoughts, and ideas for a new leader. Jessica is currently leading our strategic planning process which will plot the organization’s trajectory for the next 5 years. We are confident that, under her leadership, the board and staff will have the resources we need to obtain our goals and objectives.

But it’s the heart behind the work that sets Jessica apart. With her cheerful attitude and her thoughtful approach when dealing with matters at hand, Jessica leads with integrity, always placing our mission and the people we serve at the center of every decision.

Tonight, we are proud to honor Jessica with this Best Friend of the Rouge award not only as a token of our gratitude but as a celebration of the profound impact one individual can have on an organization, a community, and the lives of so many. Jessica, thank you for your leadership, your heart, and your unwavering dedication. We are better — and stronger — because of you.

John Buszkiewicz

Presented by Lauren Eaton, Monitoring Manager

I am honored to present this Best Friend of the Rouge Award to John Busckiewicz.

John is a fisheries biologist with the Michigan Department of Natural Resources. John has been a longtime supporter of Friends of the Rouge and is our go-to guy for anything related to fish or mussels. Since he was assigned to the Rouge River about four years ago, he immediately saw the value of Friends of the Rouge, getting to know us, attending our events and volunteering with our fish and mussel surveys. At our request, he brought out the DNR fish shocking boat to survey the deep part of the river that we could not do by wading. He was instrumental in helping us develop the culvert aka fish passage project, where he asked us to survey the culverts along the Lower Branch of the Rouge River to see if they were a barrier to fish passage and helped us to apply for funding. With John’s help we were awarded two grants to complete this project which resulted in 228 assessed culverts! With John’s guidance, we were able to narrow down some priority sites which will hopefully lead to future projects to help improve the culverts and make them better for fish movement up and down the river.

In addition to all of that, he is a part of our monitoring committee which meets 3-4 times per year and is a mix of folks from regulatory agencies, municipalities, universities, and community members. John is a valued member of the committee, and has provided such great feedback and input on our programming.

Thank you, John, on behalf of the monitoring team and Friends of the Rouge, for being here tonight to accept this award and for all of the work that you personally have done to make the Rouge River a healthier place. Through all of these efforts, you have upheld Friends of the Rouge’s mission and we are so happy to call you a Best Friend of the Rouge!

Friends of Rouge Park

Presented by Cyndi Ross, Restoration Manager

On behalf of the Friends of the Rouge, I am pleased to present a Best Friend of the Rouge award to the Friends of Rouge Park.  Accepting this award is executive director, Lindsey Pielack.

The Friends of Rouge Park (FORP) have made such a positive impact at improving Rouge Park, and the Rouge River for which it is named, since the formation of the organization in 2001.  Their dedication to our mission and their efforts to protect, restore and promote a natural, environmentally healthy and culturally vibrant Rouge Park is inspiring.  The history and partnership with Friends of the Rouge has been ongoing since FORP’s inception. 

In 2001, FORP members fought to protect a 15 acre native prairie restoration project in Rouge Park that was installed by the City of Detroit and partners (including FOTR).  After repeated mishaps with the city’s mowing crew, FORP members would meet with Detroit staff to try to prevent future issues, they would create and post signage, and, eventually, put themselves in front of the mowers to prevent these special areas from being lost. It took several years of constant vigilance before they won the battle.  Over the past decade and a half they have been caring for the prairie plantings they worked so hard to protect – working to control invasive plants, bringing people out to see the treasure they have in their own community through educational events, workdays and creating pathways for accessibility and public enjoyment.  Walking through the 10 ft tall prairie in late summer/early fall is truly an experience.  If you haven’t done so I highly recommend it. 

FORP has coordinated the largest Rouge Rescue/Rouge Park Appreciation Day/river cleanup event in the region – attracting hundreds of volunteers to help remove huge piles of junk from the river and hundreds of bags of invasive plants along with trail building and maintenance, trash cleanup projects in other areas of the Park and so much more – every year for the past 24 years! 

Their most significant accomplishment was preventing the sale of Rouge Park back in 2006 when Kwame Kilpatrick had plans to sell the park to a developer who had intended to create a gated residential community.  In 2010, they had to hold save the park rallies again when the Bing administration proposed to close half of Detroit’s parks to reduce maintenance and staffing costs.  

For much of its existence FORP was an all-volunteer run organization so they accomplished this amazing work without dedicated staff.  They are able to do even more now that they have a small staff.  Educational and stewardship activates happen throughout the year to celebrate the park, the community, and our Rouge River. 

Please join me in congratulating and thanking the Friends of Rouge Park and Lindsey Pielack for all of their amazing accomplishments. 

Philip Crookshank

Julie Rose Frentrup Outstanding Volunteer Award

Presented by Sally Petrella, Watershed Ecologist

I have the honor of presenting the Julie Rose Frentrup Outstanding Volunteer Award for 2024. Julie Rose Frentrup served on the Board of Directors until just weeks before her passing in 2011. Julie courageously fought for the rights of others and for a clean and sustainable earth, loving nature and stewarding it with a passion.  It is in her honor that the Julie Rose Frentrup Outstanding Volunteer Award is presented each year to an individual who embodies her spirit of stewardship and passion in helping to carry out the mission of Friends of the Rouge in their everyday life.  

This year’s award is being presented posthumously to Philip Crookshank.

Phil Crookshank was a long time member and volunteer with FOTR who freely shared his technical skills and knowledge, inspiring and guiding people to love and care for the environment.  Whether it was opening up logjams, helping with a canoe trip, leading a hike, or volunteering for Rouge Rescue, Phil was always the first one there and could be counted on. I will never forget the image of him at Ford Field Park in Dearborn with this elaborate contraption he set up to make it easier to move logs with all kinds of pulleys and rope.

Phil  was not just active in improving the river with Friends of the Rouge, but was also a part of the Holliday Nature Preserve Association and led countless outings for the Sierra Club, sharing his knowledge and excitement about every wildflower or mushroom.  He even helped to build a trail in Rouge Park. He is memorialized with a bench on that trail in Rouge Park and with a plaque in the Friends of the Rouge office, both reading: Philip Crookshank: Conservationist, Adventurer, Friend

We suffered a great loss when Phil died suddenly in August last year and greatly miss him. In honoring him today, we thank his family for sharing him and ask all those who knew him to keep carrying on this work in his honor. I expect to see all of you tomorrow evening at the river, chainsaw in hand ready to open the river for National Canoe Day for Phil.