MARGARET STANG

BEES FOR CHANGE

Underneath the steeple on the rooftop of Redeemer Lutheran Church on the corner of 19th Street and Wisconsin Avenue are two hand-crafted wooden beehives, each holding a queen and all of her workers. As the bees fly to and from the hives carrying pollen, Margaret Stang, (photo,

opposite page) a bright-eyed recent college graduate, is a busy bee herself. Filled with a selfless desire to save the world, or at least the neighborhood she works in, she cleans the hives most days, collects honey and coordinates programs for Bee the Change, a non-profit organization Stang helped create that is run out of Redeemer and empowers the Church’s meal-program participants by teaching them the skills of beekeeping.

To most, bees are not an obvious solution to pressing social issues like homelessness and hunger, but in them, Stang saw an opportunity. The beehives were installed on the church’s roof at the urging of the pastor, Dr. Lisa Bates-Froiland, in summer of 2015. Stang had coordinated meal-program volunteers at Redeemer as a Marquette University student, and Bates-Froiland saw a parallel between the reputation of bees as malicious stingers and the stigma meal-program recipients encounter as homeless men and women.

In collaboration with Redeemer parishioners and Charlie Koenen, founder of the “BeeVangelists,” another non-profit spreading awareness about beekeeping, Stang launched Bee the Change, steadily recruiting her meal-program participants to join the cause. Members of Bee the Change, most homeless or formerly homeless,

tend to the rooftop bees while training to be certified beekeepers. They travel with Stang across Milwaukee, educating people at churches and community centers about how installing beehives positively affects the community and the environment.

“Bees teach us to learn how to care for each other,” says Stang. “When people come to our talks, not only do their perceptions about bees change, but also do their perceptions of our members. The bees are bolstering our community environmentally, socially and spiritually. They help us build relationships across neighborhoods and across previous misconceptions.”

In the past year-and-a-half, Bee the Change has certified six members as beekeepers in Wisconsin and taught program participants business practices as they sell their honey at Redeemer and elsewhere. Central to Bee the Change’s success is Stang’s ceaseless compassion and dedication. She helped meal-program participant Ken Jones, for instance, take a leadership role within the group.

“Working with Maggie has been a complete and total delight,” says Bates-Froiland. “She is remarkably trustworthy and dependable, and she has this incredible gift of connecting with people.”

Stang plans to work with the bees throughout the rest of this summer, and then bring her ability to creatively think of unusual solutions to urgent social problems to the Jesuit Volunteer Corps in Tacoma, Washington, where she will work to create free programs at a day center and shelter for low-income individuals.

“Even without the bees, I’ll be doing the same kind of work,” says Stang. “I will keep forging relationships with the people I care for and work to break perception barriers. But I will definitely still keep a personal beehive if possible.” –