Plaster Creek Stewards is a collaboration of Calvin College students, faculty and staff working with local schools, churches, and community partners to restore health and beauty to the Plaster Creek Watershed. Plaster Creek is the most degraded stream in West Michigan, so contaminated that for much of the year the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality deems it unfit for even partial human body contact. Plaster Creek Stewards focuses on three areas—education, research, and on-the-ground restoration. Our goal is to educate the community about watershed ecology, and to develop a growing group of people who understand the strengths, needs, and problems affecting the Plaster Creek Watershed. Our educational events are always combined with opportunities to take action and we work to equip people with the knowledge and skills needed to restore health to the watershed. For more information, see http://www.calvin.edu/go/plastercreekstewards We received funding from River Network in 2011 to deepen our educational programming and to begin an oral history social research project among people who have lived, worked, or attended school, or church within the Plaster Creek watershed. These oral histories are part of a strategy to engage the public in paying attention to and caring for Plaster Creek. In particular we are focusing on developing upstream-downstream partnerships among local schools and local churches. The River Network grant was completed in the past year but the work begun by this funding is ongoing. In 2012 we received a major grant from the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality (MDEQ) which is being used for community education efforts, faculty and student research, and to reduce storm water running into the creek through the installation of four, large bio-retention swales. We know from our historical research that it has taken more than 100 years for the watershed to become this degraded and it will take several decades of concerted effort to see significant improvement in this damaged urban waterway. In May 2014 we received word that our second proposal to MDEQ has been funded for over $1.1 million to continue this important watershed restoration project.