Volunteers again fill Slippery Rock with flowers
SLIPPERY ROCK — A drive through downtown shows a postcard-pretty vista full of bright flowers, full green shrubbery and clean streets. One of the major sources behind the beautification of the small town is a volunteer organization called Slippery Rock in Bloom.
Saturday was spring planting day for Slippery Rock in Bloom, an 11-year-old project of the Slippery Rock Rotary Club. Project chairwoman Regina Greenwald said she believes the group has helped revitalize the town.
Twice a year the group plants flowers — annuals in the spring and tulips in the fall — around Memorial Park and the large, centrally located Sheetz store. It also maintains a number of large planter pots along Main Street and throughout the borough’s 2 square miles.
Saturday’s planting was accomplished with the help of volunteers, including some members of the Slippery Rock University men’s basketball team, whose coach — Ian Grady — happens to be president of the Slippery Rock Rotary Club. He recruited basketball forward LaShon Lindsey, a sophomore majoring in health and physical education, and guard Jomo Goings, a sophomore business major. Neither volunteer minded getting their hands dirty, digging out space and planting new annuals.
In the autumn, Slippery Rock in Bloom planted 10,000 tulips in two hours, Greenwald said.
“It took somewhere between 20 to 30 college students to accomplish planting that many tulips in that amount of time,” she said. In the springtime, they mix in the annuals.
Greenwald says they buy the flowers with donations gathered year round. It costs about $15,000 annually to keep Slippery Rock in flowers. That amount also covers the cost of paying college students to do occasional upkeep and maintenance throughout the year.
Greenwald stresses that “it’s not only about the flowers.” While they are the most obvious — and perhaps prettiest — aspect of what Slippery Rock in Bloom does, there is more to it. Greenwald says the project is about community and civic pride, conservation and improving the quality of life for those town residents.
Volunteers work year round on landscaping projects, recycling campaigns and trash pickup.
In 2018, Slippery Rock in Bloom won top honors from nonprofit America in Bloom, which named Slippery Rock best community with a population of 3,000 to 10,000. Besides flowers, communities are judged on six other criteria, including community vitality, environmental efforts and celebrating heritage. It is a nationwide recognition, and there is only one winner in each category.
America in Bloom sends representatives to visit “bloom” communities in person to investigate spaces. In 2018, two judges visited Slippery Rock for two days, walking its picturesque streets and meeting residents and town leaders.
“We couldn’t do this without our volunteers,” Greenwald said.
