PHOTO OP ED: They brought a flock of cardinals to the YMCA Christmas tree

Bright red cardinals—177 of them—are perched in the towering Christmas tree in the Feith Family YMCA in Saukville thanks to a joint effort by members of the appropriately named Joint Efforts Aquatic Class. The class members, who work out regularly in the facility’s swimming pool, started making the cardinals in October, devoting many hours to fabricating the intricate paper ornaments that are decorated with glitter and feature a tuft of red feather  on the birds’ crowns. The ornaments add splashes of crimson that make the two-story tree all the more impressive. Though the tree is manmade, it continues a tradition started by the late John Feith, benefactor and namesake of the Saukville Y, who each year donated a massive evergreen from his wooded property in the Town of Saukville. The aquatic class members who made the ornaments and gathered in front of the tree for this photo are (seated from left) Alice Leszczynski and Janet Levy; (back row from left) Monica Guokas, Donna Geurts, Sue Olson, Queenie Weesen, Pamela Riffel, Arlene Willman and Sheila Nelson.