(pictured with Golda Meir School in the background) is the result of a three-month collaboration between Milwaukee Public Schools’ Golda Meir School, Express Yourself Milwaukee and the Milwaukee Department of Forestry. The project focused on transforming a diseased playground tree into a community art piece and defining a meditation area to memorialize the lives of children who have been lost to violence in Milwaukee. Each silver or copper leaf, created by a Golda Meir School student, represents a child’s life. The Department of Forestry also planted a live tree in this quiet area to remind us of how we must grow from the lesson learned with the loss of these children’s lives.

"A teacher is one who has a program—arithmetic, reading, writing, and so on—fulfills it conscientiously and feels that [s]he has done [her] his job. An educator tries to give children something else in addition: spirit."
– Golda Meir

With programs like The Remembrance Tree, the staff at Golda Meir School are educators who go beyond the daily curriculum to give students spirit.