Each spring semester since 2017, DAC 661 Digital Engagement Seminar students create comprehensive projects which demonstrate their mastery of the Digital Arts and Culture learning goals. The 2021 capstone cohort contributed to a fledgling campaign that had been initiated by the Milwaukee County Parks Department in 2020 but was interrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic. The ambitious Brew Hero campaign aims to promote stewardship of the county’s 157 parks in the form of “micro-volunteerism.” Instead of occasional, community-based cleaning events, the Brew Hero campaign promotes regular cleaning of a favorite park or other public space. The campaign is part of a wider-reaching campaign aimed at increasing appreciation of the park system as an invaluable Milwaukee amenity.

Instead of a physical showcase situated in space, the 2020 showcase is now published here on UWM’s Digital Commons. Being resilient, creative individuals, the students represented here demonstrated remarkable flexibility during a time when several unfamiliar obstacles were being hurled at them. Despite the sudden disruption of their lives, the DAC students represented here not only completed their capstone projects but did so with stunning results.

The Brew Hero campaign comes about in the wake of an extensive period of quarantine for which being able to venture outside had been one comforting activity.