Saturday, August 3, 2013

New Development on Volunteer Help

A couple weeks ago someone emailed me and offered to connect the Olive Street neighbors to a group of med students looking for a community service / beautification project.  The schedule would be tight, but I couldn't resist having 50 - 60 volunteers to put some effort into making HUGE progress of the 1401 pocket park project.  

As a part of the SEND MOU, we were asked to provide a plan for the future of the lot.  To date this had not happened, but with the tight schedule, we needed something to show the Med School Student Group. Although not all of the design features can be provided by the volunteer group, a comprehensive "master plan" was necessary to plot our course.

Over the past couple years, we've only very briefly discussed future plans.  We certainly wanted an area for kids to be off the street, perhaps a small "field" to play soccer or football, or to even shoot hoops.  We discussed providing a play area with sand box and swing set.  We also saw the value and benefit of a community garden, and simple beautification via landscaping and fencing.  Based on those core concepts, I threw together a plan which achieves those goals and while complimenting the existing vegetation on the lot:
The plan includes providing a mulched play area beneath the shade canopy of the trees toward the back of the lot while utilizing the sunny west side as the garden area.  The gardens would provide street side visual interest, while the shaded  east area would be reserved for kids to be well protected and away from the street.  A gated shadow-box style fence on the east side is both allows access and visual line of sight while providing a higher level of security to the play area from the alley.
Detailed features of the current garden design (see below) include 48" x 120" (4' x 10') raised bed garden plots, street front landscaping consisting of a decorative mulched area with low maintenance perennials such as proposed knock out roses, day lillys and hydrangea and seating features.  This area of the lot remains in the sun for most of the day.

Raised beds (above) could be sponsored (i.e. paid for) and tended to by local residents.  Seating could be salvaged and refurbished or designed and created by artistic neighbors, and perennial street plantings could be cultivated from yards within a couple block radius.  Room for nine large raised beds could result in a lot of fresh produce started in the spring of 2014.  Simple raised beds (below) could accommodate a large growing area.
The east side of the lot (below) would include a grassy play field in the center and a children's play area under the shade of the existing trees.  A large mulched area could accommodate a swing or play set and a sand box as well as seating features.  There is more than enough room to also accommodate compost and soil bins with lids to keep the contents dry.

Keeping our eyes peeled for salvaged play sets and sand boxes could make providing this feature a breeze (above).  Compost and soil bins (below left) are conceptually designed based on those features at the Youth Education Garden in the 900 block of Shelby Street (below right).

After visiting with Alan Hyslop, co-chair of the IU Med Student Volunteer Committee with Nathan Delafield, it was clear that we needed to prioritize things their group could achieve during their day of volunteer service.  We decided that their group would tend to weeding the lot, laying mulch in the front and back areas per the plan, planting some street front decorative shrubs and / or flowers, staining the existing fencing.  This work alone will really make the frontage shine and serve as a sounds stepping off point for the future of this community-based pocket park and garden.

Tentative IU Med Student Plan

Date: August 8th, 7 am to 1 pm.
Site: SENSE charter school and 1401 Olive St Pocket Park.
Numbers: ~80 volunteers from the School of Medicine; 2 head coordinators and 5 other volunteer coordinators; 10-15 other volunteers (if necessary).
Materials: 50 bags of mulch, 50 bags of top soil, bed lining, gardening tools, rakes, shovels, trash bags, gloves, trowels, trimmers, and hopefully some wood (if you needed this).
Plan: We will work on the SENSE charter school site first, making sure that the work is done there first. After we finish there (around 10-11 am or so), we will head to the pocket park and begin work there (spreading mulch, weeding, and planting flowers/plants or whatever you would like).


As we move forward, anyone with an interest in participating in the funding, construction, maintenance or use of the park should contact me to be included in digital updates as we post and issue them.

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