Communities bloom with pride
Published Friday August 1st, 2008
The Communities in Bloom project has become a mainstay for Sackville, and is promising great results at Fundy National Park
One of the highlights of summer is the beautiful scents and sights of flowers blooming. Due to of their participation in the Communities in Bloom (CiB) program, two Southeastern New Brunswick communities - the Town of Sackville and Fundy National Park - will soon be judged on their beautification efforts.
Now in its 14th year, CiB encourages hundreds of Canadian communities to improve their quality of life through beautification, community involvement, environmental awareness, and heritage conservation.
In July and August, qualified CiB volunteer judges visit communities across Canada to evaluate each one on its overall performance in the following areas: tidiness; environmental awareness; community involvement; heritage conservation; urban forestry; landscaped areas; floral displays; and turf and groundcovers.
The evaluation is based on the local conditions and achievements of citizens, businesses, organizations, institutions, and the municipal government working together.
The detailed evaluation reports identify each community's strengths and provide suggestions for improvement.
The Town of Sackville has participated in this program for six years.
"The Communities in Bloom program allows the Town of Sackville to work with the business community and residents to improve our Town's beautification efforts," says Lindsay Crossman, Sackville's CiB coordinator. "My role involves planning the national judges visit."
In 2007, the Town of Sackville earned a 5-Bloom award - the highest designation - in the 5,001-10,000 category.
The CiB judges noted that Sackville was a warm and welcoming community; was a clean tidy town with no noticeable graffiti, vandalism or litter; and that there were many well-done floral displays in town, great hanging baskets lined the streets, and that there were nice planters under the entrance signs.
"It is very gratifying to be a 5-Bloom community," says Lindsay. "There is a real sense of pride within Sackville and we want to take every opportunity to improve.
It isn't always about competition, it's nice to be able to put energy into making our town everything it can be.
"The visual impact of the beautification efforts has sparked positive comments from all walks of life within the community as well as from visitors to our town."
Last year, Fundy National Park participated in the CiB competition for the first time. Pam Veinotte, the Field Unit Superintendent for Parks Canada, Southeastern New Brunswick, had become familiar with the Communities in Bloom program while working at Banff National Park.
"When I arrived at Fundy National Park, I thought it would be a tremendous opportunity to enhance the natural beauty and gardens here," says Pam.
Fundy was recognized last year with a 5-Bloom award in the non-competitive Special Attractions category.
"It was very exciting for us and a great testament to the dedication of our grounds crew," she says. Fundy is participating again this year and the judges are expected on site in early August.
"This is a terrific program to be involved with and gives us something to strive for while we improve the look of the Park," says Pam.
The results, including annual bloom ratings, criteria award recognitions, and winners, will be announced at the National Awards Ceremonies, hosted this year by the City of Lethbridge, Alberta on Sept. 19 and 20.
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