An upcoming 5K aims to give a kick-start to a land rehabilitation project near the Hart-Montague Bike Trail in Montague.
Rev. Dave Celeskey, pastor of the Unity Reformed Church in Norton Shores, launched his Redeem Mi Land group in 2022 as a doctoral thesis project for his studies at Western Theological Seminary in Holland, but he’s since pushed forward in hopes of making the organization something that “will carry many years into the future and hopefully beyond myself,” he said.
Celeskey, an outdoors lover, spends lots of time enjoying nature along with wife Kelyn and their two children, Lydia and Corban. The Celeskey family are avid runners, so it made sense to have a run - the Redeem Mi Run Saturday, May 4 - be the first fundraiser for the group.
The event will consist of a 5K run/walk ($40 to participate) starting at 9 a.m. and a half-marathon ($90) kicking off a half hour earlier, at 8:30.
Fittingly, the race will start and finish near the Trailway Campground in downtown Montague. (It was supposed to start at the campground, but due to the construction work being done on the trail this spring, the race had to move a block away.) The site is adjacent to the land Celeskey hopes to redeem, a former civic dump he said was covered over - but not cleaned out - in the 1980s when the city determined it didn’t want a dump in a tourist area. With aid from the youth group at Ferry Memorial Church in Montague, Celeskey conducted an inventory of the area last fall.
“They just kind of rolled sod over it and called it good,” Celeskey said. “It looks OK on the surface, but if you look an inch or two below, it’s still a dump underneath. What we’re going to do is excavate what we can, scrap the metal we can, recycle what we can, and take the trash to an actual landfill and we’ll restore it to a wetland.”
In between the start and finish, the course will cross the Hart-Montague Bike Trail and also intersect with the Clear Springs Nature Preserve, underscoring the environmental focus of the group. Also in support of that aim, the “swag bag” that comes with registration will include seed paper with a QR code on it to redeem offers from event sponsors. The seed paper will then be able to be planted and produce wildflowers. The bags themselves will be dissolvable with hot water, and no water cups will be available on race day.
Celeskey views Redeem Mi Land’s mission from a spiritual perspective, likening the process of redeeming land that “bears the burden of sin” to that of redeeming souls - especially with regard to how the process is a lengthy and often taxing one. It takes more, he said, than “roll(ing) sod over it and call(ing) it good.”
“Just like in our lives, when we go through a cleanup or repentance process, it’s not a one-day thing, it’s a lifelong process,” Celeskey said. “Every piece of land we work with, we’re committed to working with for generations.”
According to the Redeem Mi Land website, redeemmiland.org, Celeskey met with Montague city manager Jeff Auch about the project and was directed to another plot of land on the other side of the trail from which to draw inspiration. This land was excavated and repopulated with local plant species. He hopes to accomplish the same thing with his chosen plot - and, hopefully, seek out another one in the state afterwards.
“The city and the township have been great to work with and they’re excited about it,” Celeskey said. “It helps the community and the land there, just so people are aware of the ecological issues going on around there.”
It won’t be easy, of course, and requires sign-ups for the Redeem Mi Run to get the project going. Celeskey, though, appears in it for the long haul, and if the run raises sufficient money, he said he hopes to begin redemption of the land in June by excavating it.
“Because this is a first-year event, this is kind of our litmus test to see how this fundraiser works for this kind of a project,” Celeskey said. “We’re getting a lot of good talk with different places in the community and some good feedback from some people. We still need a lot of people to register for the race itself. We have people willing to volunteer.”
