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.
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.
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.
No comments:
Post a Comment