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Get in on the Excitement & Community-Building Momentum
It's time to register your community to participate in the 2016 America in Bloom program. The deadline to register is February 28. Bonus: if you recruit another AIB participant, you can save 25 percent on your registration costs. To learn more about the program, the benefits of participation, and how make the most of your experience, visit the America in Bloom website.
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Detroit Lays Out Massive Greening Project
In what may be the city's most ambitious ecological project ever, Detroit plans to plant tens of thousands of trees in two quarter-square-mile patches to show how greening strategies can improve life for everyday Detroiters. The project will target two districts, and every vacant lot within those quarter-square-mile districts would be either planted with trees or given some other "green" or "blue" treatment - rainwater gardens, fields of sunflowers, urban farms, and more. This initiative will be paid for largely with money from philanthropic foundations. Learn more.
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Engaging a New Generation of Preservationists
The National Trust for Historic Preservation has launched an initiative to train more young people in preservation crafts while helping to protect historic cultural sites on public lands. Named "HOPE Crew," the program links preservation projects to the national youth corps movement. It brings the potential for thousands of crew members to work on hundreds of sites, learning preservation craft skills while rehabilitating historic places. To enable the youth corps to successfully complete rehabilitation projects at historic sites, the Trust coordinates support from its broad network of partners and preservation experts in order to provide a preservation advisor and a craft expert for each project. Learn more.
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Attention Garden Retailers: DIY Bench Cards Available
If you're a garden retailer, AIB and the Ball Horticultural Company have partnered to provide you with free bench cards to help tell your customers about the benefits of plants. Not a retailer? Have a look anyway because you'll learn some important - and fun - facts about the benefits of horticulture to our daily lives. Discover the surprising side of plants.
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Celebrating 15 Years of Planting Pride
By Laura Kunkle, AIB Executive Director
See the AIB logo to the right? It showcases that we are celebrating our 15th year. 15 years - wow! And I'm proud to have been around for all of them. From the first meetings held to answer the question, "What if?" to where we are today, with more than 240 communities - representing more than 22 million people - harnessing the power of community involvement, horticulture, heritage preservation, and environmental awareness to create beautiful, livable, thriving towns and cities.
2016 promises to be great year for AIB. Communities are registering for this year's national awards program; we continue to partner with CN Railway to offer grants for greening of public spaces; we're planning the annual symposium and awards program to be held October 6-8 in Arroyo Grande, California (details coming soon!); and we continue to cultivate relationships and partnerships with like-minded organizations to better spread the message about the importance of flowers, plants, and trees to communities and their residents.
Thank you for your support of America in Bloom. Let's keep planting pride in America.
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Have a story to share? We would love to hear from you! Tell us about AIB activities in your community, or let us know about a community you have visited that should get involved with AIB. E-mail your story to Laura Kunkle, AIB@AmericainBloom.org
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