By CHRISTIE MASTRIC

Journal Staff Writer

MARQUETTE — In response to the economic impact of COVID-19, Northern Michigan University student Joshua Gosseck has launched a fundraising campaign titled “Unite Marquette.”

In this campaign, 100% of the proceeds from locally designed and printed T-shirt and mask sales will be used to promote local businesses. After the fundraising period ends, a Facebook drawing will be announced to provide gift cards to community members who supported the campaign and patronized their favorite Marquette businesses.

The fundraising period will run through Monday. To join this campaign, go to the Unite Marquette Facebook page at Facebook.com/unitemarquette. Following a link there will take the visitor to a LoyalTees page at https;//loyaltees.clothing/unitemqt where the mask and T-shirt, featuring a design of an ore dock, can be purchased.

Gosseck is a finance major at NMU and a recipient of the four-year Green to Gold Scholarship. Before attending NMU, he served in the Army and has now been selected as the cadet battalion commander for NMU’s ROTC program. Gosseck also works as a project manager for Invent@NMU, where he has close ties to small businesses in Marquette.

“Growing up in the Marquette area, I understand the tight-knit bond that the residents have within our community,” Gosseck said in a news release. “This made me confident that we could help local businesses in a different way: fundraising and giving back gift cards to not only support local businesses, but also drive traffic back to the storefronts after being sheltered in place.

“Unite Marquette is not a new concept, but has been something going on for as long as I can remember. However, if there was a time that we needed to unite behind our favorite local businesses the most, it is right now.”

Beaumier hosts new

exhibition

The Beaumier U.P. Heritage Center at NMU is hosting a new exhibition in its Gries Hall gallery titled “Through the Years: Mount Mesnard to Mount Marquette.” Students in an anthropology course taught by Scott Demel created and installed the exhibit.

It features dozens of artifacts collected during many years of archeological digs at the site, photographs of the excavation and other artifacts, and interpretive panels.

Mount Marquette has a rather storied history, and hasn’t always been known by the name it has now. In the Archaic period, and before European contact, it had a name from the indigenous people who lived there. After the French settled, it was called Mount Mesnard after Jesuit missionary Rene Menard. In the 1960s, it was changed to its current name, for the explorer Jacques Marquette.

Over the years, Mount Marquette has gone through many changes. In prehistoric times it was mined for quartzite used for dart points. In the 1800s, it was mined for red sandstone by three men who were violently removed by the company from whom they leased the land. People now engage in hiking, biking and skiing on its slopes. These changes will be addressed in the exhibit.

Admission is free and the exhibition will be on display through Nov. 7. The Beaumier Center’s expanded hours are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday and noon to 4 p.m. Saturday. To keep visitors and staff safe, face masks are required and a limit of 12 people will be allowed in the gallery at one time.

Groups that would like to visit the exhibition should contact the Beaumier Center in advance at 906-227-3212 or heritage@ nmu.edu.

The exhibition’s original April launch was postponed by the COVID-19 pandemic. Four students — Wilbert Alik, Morgan Armstrong, Charles Griffin and Sage Pletka — returned to campus in late July for the installation. Other students from Demel’s anthropology course who worked on the project were Peter Conely, Juan Funes, Amber Lubbers, Emily Pfeiff, Hayley Pittman, Emily Thompson and Miranda Wood.

Christie Mastric can be reached at 906-228-2500, ext. 250. Her email address is cbleck@miningjournal.net