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Fairfield Beautification Commission, Girl Scouts clean up downtown
Southeast Iowa Union offers audio versions of articles using Instaread. Some words may be mispronounced.
FAIRFIELD – Fairfield Beautification Commission hosted its annual spring cleanup of the downtown on Saturday, April 19, drawing over 30 volunteers who picked up trash, raked leaves and otherwise beautified Central Park.
The commission previously referred to this event as its “Streetsweepers Ball,” but commission chairwoman Deborah Williamson said that created confusion, since the commission wasn’t literally cleaning the streets.
“The only part of the street we work on is the crosswalks,” Williamson explained. “Our focus is the garden nodes, which looked really good because it was early enough in the season that there were very few leaves. [Parks director] Pam Craff came out a few weeks ago and did a thorough cut back and clean up, taking great care not to trample on the tulips.”
Williamson said the group had allotted five hours, with an hour-break in the middle, to the spring cleanup, but the volunteers finished early because there was so little to clean. One of the reasons the cleaning went so fast were all the little hands at work from Fairfield Girl Scout Troop No. 2269, which includes Daisies and Brownies. Troop leader Rachel Brown said the Girl Scouts try to do one project per month, and meet once a month, too.
Those who missed Saturday’s event but who wish to help beautify the downtown are in luck, because the commission will host two planting parties on consecutive Saturdays in May.
On May 10, commissioners and volunteers will gather in the downtown from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. to plant flowers in the planters.
“That’s a really fun weekend because Mother’s Day is the next day, so it’s all about flowers,” Williamson said. “Folks can come downtown and put beautiful annuals in 30 downtown flower pots. We’ve added 10 flowers pots to the downtown, so we have more flower pots than ever before.”
The next Saturday, May 17, residents are invited back to the downtown to plant flowers in the nodes, again from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Williamson said they’ll plant tulips and petunias.
“The nodes just go from gorgeous to more gorgeous,” she said. “Once the petunias get so colorful to cover the tulip leaves, it’s full summer beauty.”
Williamson added that, sometime around Mother’s Day on May 11, Lengacher's Variety Store and Greenhouse of Keosauqua will deliver 71 hanging baskets to place in Fairfield’s downtown.
Other projects the Beautification Commission has approaching on the horizon are the installation of an ornamental arch at Heritage Alley, which leads from Central Park to the Jefferson County Courthouse, and landscaping in and around the new roundabout on Sough Highway 1.
Call Andy Hallman at 641-575-0135 or email him at andy.hallman@southeastiowaunion.com
