8am Saturday and we're all up and ready to work on the Fire station! This is the best of possible ripple effect scenarios. Emily Wilson, my friend and neighbor, was my first client, ever. She lives on Cullen street and she wanted a "cottage garden like my grandma's." How fun is that? I drew it, she built it, it's in and she loves it but she didn't stop there.
That was just the start. Last year she coupled with another client, Hedrich Michaelsen to form FOBP, Friends of Brentwood Park, our neighborhood park. She pulled me in to help with the design, and I volunteer of course, but she and Hedrich do the grant writing, organization, newsletter writing and volunteer round-up.
She didn't stop there.
She lives a few houses down from Crestview Fire Station #16...our neighborhood Fire Station.
I've wanted to do something with the Fire Station since I moved here...but simply never got around to it. When she called a few months ago and asked if I would do the design, it wasn't even a whole second before I said, or rather shouted into the phone YES!
She's a fabulous organizer, I'm not and I get to do what I love...design. We're going to turn it into a Wild Life Habitat, but also install several beds for the guys to do square foot gardening!
We had a few meetings about the logistics, she did all the phone and foot work, and today was the day!
Volunteers from both Crestview and Brentwood neighborhoods showed up along with a few Habitat Stewards and CAMN members...around 15 folks in all!
We covered the hell strips with cardboard and layered about 4-5 inches of free mulch from Asplundh. The city dumped around 2 cubic yards of dillo dirt, and that was spread over the lawn and around the base of the existing trees, after we pulled up the grass.
I'd say we got about 1/2 of the hell strip done before we ran out of material but we still had an extra 20 minutes of our original 3 hour time slot.
Here are a few volunteers taking a break beneath one of the huge Pecan trees.
That's Emily on the rope there, when it was finished several folks took a turn climbing the rope for fun...one, two, three!
Go Mark!
This isn't the whole bunch 'cause a few folks had to cut out a little early but most of us stayed through 'til the end! I'm never sure what or why anyone gets a spark and runs with it, but image a world full of people who want to make it a better place....hmmmm.
If you would like to donate time, money or supplies to either FOBP or the Crestview Fire Station #16 Wild Life Habitat project you can e-mail me at greengardener@grandecom.net or Emily Wilson at pamelagrierrocks@yahoo.com
There will be several workdays before we plant in the fall and we'd love to have you come help!
Happy Gardening!
7 comments:
I love this project! I sent the URL to friends back home so they can see what I have been up to! Thanks for writing about it, Cheryl.
That is so cool. Good luck with the project and I can't wait to see how it turns out. It's so great to live in a community that cares, isn't it?
Thanks for chiming in you two. It's amazing to me that when I write about plants or growing and such, folks have a lot to say...but when it comes to civic duty...not so much.
Thanks for posting all of those pictures. In addition to piquing my interest in joining in the fun, they reminded me that I shouldn't recycle some cardboard boxes that were headed to the curb (I have a backyard of weeds that I need to get under control, so I put the boxes down and laid some mulch over them to start to get a handle on the situation).
You guys are awesome! What a great project and so cool that they want to do some vegetable gardening as well. Will there be a little area they can sit outside at night and say hi to neighbors walking by? I always loved that about my Chicago neighborhood station.
They have an area that they hang out in, it's by the rope...but we are getting them new Bayou chairs in fire engine colors! I can't remember who donated for that...but folks are starting to jump on board! Thanks! I love all your projects Bonnie!
good work, and what a great community activity.
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