The family of Hana St. Juliana has announced plans to create Hana’s Garden, a space designed to honor Hana and three other teens who died in a November 2021 shooting at Oxford High School. Work on the garden is expected to begin in the spring of 2023. It will be located at the Seymour Lake Township Park in Oxford.
“The purpose of Hana’s Garden is to have a place for the community to remember the four students lost. We don’t want them or what happened to them to be forgotten,” said Steve St. Juliana, Hana’s father.
He said the garden will be divided into four sections, one for each of the teens. Family members have been asked for ideas to incorporate into those garden sections that reminds them of their loved one. The other victims include Madisyn Baldwin, Tate Myre and Justin Shilling.
The garden’s initial concept was created by Chris Nordstrom of Ann Arbor-based Carlisle Wortman Associates who donated his time and talents toward the project. The plan calls for a central plaza with four pergolas, benches and a four-sided sculpture that honors the teens, plus a water feature, boardwalk, rain garden and walkways.
Detroit-based Smith Group, a world-renowned architectural firm, will donate their services to create the garden’s final drawings and Heritage and Company, a landscape construction firm located in Oxford, will oversee and coordinate the project.
Steve St. Juliana said that their original plan was to create a memorial for Hana on a smaller scale but the success of an April 2022 fundraiser in Lake Orion prompted them to consider this larger project.
The garden will represent the first project of the Hana St. Juliana Memorial Fund, a new fund held and administered by Four County Community Foundation. The fund’s intent is to remember and celebrate the lives of the Oxford High School shooting victims and support initiatives that can prevent a similar tragedy in the future. Donations can be made to the Hana St. Juliana Memorial Fund via PayPal at https://www.paypal.com/donate/?hosted_button_id=UFUW8JH99F86E or by visiting https://www.4ccf.org/donate-online/ and select ‘Field of Interest Funds’ and then ‘Hana St. Juliana Memorial.’ Checks can also be sent to Four County Community Foundation, P.O. Box 539 Almont, MI 48003.
Donations to the fund will be directed towards immediate projects, including the garden. Once those initial projects are completed, any remaining funds will go into an endowment for the purpose of maintaining the garden and facilitating healing and prevention programs.
Four County Community Foundation is a 501c3, non-profit community organization (Tax ID: 38-2736601) dedicated to making a positive impact on the communities they serve in southeastern Lapeer County, western St. Clair County, northern Macomb County, and northeastern Oakland County.
For more information about the Hana St. Juliana Memorial Fund, call (810) 798-0909 or contact the foundation’s Executive Director Kathy Dickens at kdickens@4ccf.org.
