In the fall of 2012, Archangel donated clones of the Acme Black Willow, a champion tree from northern Michigan, to the Traverse Bay Intermediate School District (TBISD). Students there held a planting event to reintroduce this great tree into the local ecosystem. Black willow (Salix nigra) is a remarkable species of tree that provides many functions for the environment. It does a spectacular job of removing toxins from water and soil, so this is very useful tree to treat water runoff.

The trees were planted by students in a shallow area nearby a parking lot on the TBISD campus. Corey Bigelow, chief nurseryman from Archangel, was on site to instruct the students on the proper way to plant trees to give them the best chances for survival.

Ann Blight is a teacher at the TBISD Career Tech Center where she manages the Agriscience and Natural Resources program, and is in charge of their state of the art greenhouse facility. The program prepares high school students for careers in the diverse Agriscience and Natural Resources career pathway. Employability skills are taught through hands-on participation in landscape design and floral design, interior plantscaping, hydroponics aquaculture, veterinary science, and natural resource issues such as Great Lakes ecology. The Career Tech Center serves more than twenty five public and private high schools, and attracts students from the five county Traverse Bay region.

In the fall of 2012, Archangel gifted three-dozen champion Black Willow clones, offering a hands-on learning experience for their students to tend and grow the trees in their greenhouse over the winter months. The Agriscience students will plant the trees on other parts of their Traverse City, MI campus after the snow melts this spring.