Last week the Wyandotte Nation’s Planning & Natural Resources Department held its annual Environmental Festival Friday, April 14, at the Tribe’s Pow-Wow grounds for more than 500 students, teachers, and guests. Additionally, the department collected the most tires to date during its Spring Tire Collection event.

“The first Environmental Festival was in May of 2008,” said Kathleen Welch, Environmental Program Manager for the Tribe. “We had hosted the event every year since then, excluding two years because of COVID.”

Welch said they set up 16 booths run by 42 workers and had 27 tribal employee volunteers help at the festival. Eight northeast Oklahoma tribes participated in this event, including the Wyandottes, Eastern Shawnee, Seneca-Cayuga, Cherokee, Modoc, Miami, Ottawa, and Peoria. She estimated 500 students, 30 teachers, and three paraprofessionals (from Wyandotte public schools) participated in the annual festival designed to educate students on the environment, environmental problems, and solutions. The students also took home some goodies.

In addition to the Friday festival, the week started with the Spring Tire Collection event during which the Wyandotte Nation collected a record 1,244 tires, according to Welch. The collection event ended Friday at the Lost Creek Recycling Center.

For the past 10 years, the department has held a collection event twice each year, one in the spring and the other in the fall. The next collection event is in October and is a great opportunity for those who were not able to drop their tires off this time to do so in the fall.

“These tires are picked up by RTR Environmental from Noble, Oklahoma, and are transported back to their facility where the tires are shredded, all medal removed and then used for various other products,” Welch said.

For more images from the event, check out the Wyandotte Nation’s Facebook page.