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.

According to Oxford Township Parks and Recreation Director, Phil Castonia, the garden will be about 25,000 square feet and be located just south of the Farmers Market, where the Gaga Ball Pit is currently. That pit will be removed.

The garden will be divided into four sections, one for each of the slain teens, Madisyn Baldwin, Tate Myre and Justin Shilling. Family members have been asked for ideas to incorporate into those garden sections which reminds them of their loved one.

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 was created last month. 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

www.paypal.com/donate/?hosted_button_id=UFUW8JH99F86E or by visiting

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,

“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.