Eric Tadsen
Ten-year-old Kashyia Smith (foreground) peers at fireflies she’s captured at Indian Lake County Park, while Lyrick Hutson, 13, keeps watch for other beetles to catch. The health and wellness group Outdoors 123 brought the kids to the park.
After about a 15-minute hike into Indian Lake County Park in Cross Plains, Vaunce Ashby and Janice Jones rest on a bench. The trip, which they’ve made with several families from S.S. Morris Community African Methodist Episcopal Church on Milwaukee Street, is a nice respite from the city. But it’s not exactly quiet.
As the sun drops down over the horizon, children are giggling all around them, chasing fireflies and scooping them into Mason jars and old peanut butter containers. Each time a bug blinks, they leap in a new direction — laughing after their prey. Soon jars are filled with five, 10, then 15 glowing bugs that illuminate their temporary homes.
Ashby and Jones watch the pursuit, grinning.
“Growing up, we didn’t know any better so we would take the lightning part off the back and make it a ring or earring,” says Ashby. “That’s kinda brutal, now looking back as an adult, but as a kid we just thought it was the coolest thing. And then you’d keep a couple in your jar and you’d keep them in your bedroom and you’d fall asleep watching them and the next morning they’d be...well, you know, done.”
Jones says her grandkids are more mindful of the insects’ well-being. “My grandkids wanted to know first thing, ‘are we letting them go?’” she says. “They were worried about that. They didn’t want to keep them.”
One of her grandkids chimes in as she runs by: “No animal wants to live in a jar.”
“Out of the mouths of babes,” Ashby says, laughing.
About 70 people attended the first annual Firefly Walk hosted by Outdoors 123, a group promoting health and wellness for families, especially those of color. The group is led by Diane Schwartz, whose day job is at the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction.
Eric Tadsen
Left to right, Mekhi Mantanona, 5, Kayvon Goldsby, 7, and Nysiah McKinney, 6, lead the charge through Indian Lake County Park in search of fireflies.
“Nature for me has always been a place of restoration and healing if I’m going through a tough time,” Schwartz says. “I want to give that to all people, and I see that as my contribution to...equity and social justice. We have a lot of work to do in our communities, and if we can get to each other in nature and find a little peace that way then I think we’re all going to be better off.”
Schwartz first led outings for kids while working at Goodman Community Center in 2008. Get Kids Outside started in 2010, but she changed the name to Outdoors 123 this past year to shift the focus to creating role models, especially for children of color, in natural or outdoor settings.
In 2012, the Rev. Everett Mitchell invited her to visit his church, Christ the Solid Rock Baptist Church, which she later joined.
“I would like to expand to work with more churches because that’s what, I believe, is the heart of the African American experience. It’s the heart of the social justice movement,” Schwartz says.
“Now, we just need to make our parks and outdoor spaces safe so that people of color want to go there.”
Ashby laments that many children of color are not used to going outside and learning about nature. “As kids we did, but for some reason, this generation, it’s not on their minds,” she says. “And as a city kid growing up, it was expected that you could essentially live in the park until the [street] lights came on.”
Lala McKinney, 10, is thrilled to be here. “This is the perfect place,” says McKinney, who will be a fifth-grader at Cottage Grove Elementary School in the fall. “We got to roast marshmallows and catch fireflies and stay up late because it’s past my bedtime. This place was really fun, so thank you to all the people who organized this.”
Schwartz is happy to help. “These are seminal events growing up, like when you catch your first fish,” she says. “You just don’t forget these things.”
Types of fireflies: 160 to 200 species in North America; more than 2,000 worldwide.
Are fireflies flies? No, they are flying beetles.
Why do fireflies light up? There’s a chemical reaction in their lower abdomen between luciferin, which is heat-resistant and glows, and luciferase, an enzyme that triggers light emission.
Lifespan: Two months in the wild.
Food: Other insects, pollen and nectar, although some don’t eat at all.
