The North Conway Community Center Landscaping Project
Wendy
began her two-year term as the president of the Mountain Garden Club in July.
Among the projects, which are all volunteer projects, mostly for the towns in
the North Country, was the landscaping of the new community center built on
Main St. in North Conway last winter. This was a very large project and it had
to be completed by September 1 as
the lead man on the project, Bob Santoro, was headed back to Sarasota, Fl. on
that date. Wendy’s job was to get
all the help that Bob needed and to coordinate all the donations of plants, paving,
benches, etc that all the local businesses had promised. This turned out to be
a very big job. Following are some of the results.
Article in the Conway Daily Sun
Eight-year-old
Grier Carrier of North Conway (center) prepares a flowering plant from Home
Depot with help from Mountain Garden Club's Marlene Lawton (starting second
from left), Deb Holmes, John Cryan and Jean Perry, and Home Depot associates
Colleen Bousquet and "D.C." Dilber Chavarrya-Angull (in foreground).
The grounds of the North Conway Community Center were transformed thanks to
community efforts Thursday. (JAMIE GEMMITI PHOTO)
Home Depot, Mountain
Garden Club Unite on Project
CONWAY
- They say a garden is a friend you can visit anytime. In that case, feel free
to visit a new friend the new flower garden at the $1.35 million North Conway
Community Center, which opened last November.
Be
sure to take in the foot path, stream bed, bridge, sod and sprinkler system,
edging and benches, thanks to an $8,500 Team Depot grant from Home Depot;
$5,000 in donations acquired by the Mountain Garden Club; many other donations
of materials and labor; and especially the vision and energy of Home Depot
Manager Brad Bousquet of Conway and garden club member Bob Santoro of Jackson.
Both
were almost too busy to talk on Thursday, where the front of the site south of
Schouler Park was a sea of orange T-shirts worn by Home Depot associates,
helping to install five benches along with a crew of vets from the American
Legion.
Each
bench represents a different branch of the service: Army, Navy, Air Force,
Marines and Coast Guard, with a plaque on each.
"Home
Depot is all about assisting veterans," said Bousquet, taking a break to explain
the project, where Assistant Store Managers Stasha MacDougall and Krista Ames,
along with his wife, Colleen, were pitching in. "When I called up Ryan
(Sommer, executive director of the community center), I said, why can't we
involve the vets?'"
It
was Bousquet's brainchild to help beautify the grounds at the center, which was
built entirely through grants and individual donations, and will be debt-free
by next year when a bridge loan is paid off. But no money was left over for the
grounds, and when the snow melted in March, the beautiful green building was
surrounded by a sea of hard-packed clay and sand.
"I
saw the need, and I had a vision," Bousquet said, noting that Home Depot
has helped with plantings at the old community center as well. He looked on
with satisfaction as a group of Home Depot associates worked on the sturdy
wooden bridge that will cross the streambed over to the children's
spray-ground. And yes, the river rock in the bed is from Home Depot, too.
"It
truly does take a community," Bousquet marveled. "I like that the
vets will be able to enjoy all of this and know they played a part in it,
too."
The
grant provided not only funding for the concrete-and-wood benches but also for
tools, such as spades and lawnmowers; materials, such as the pressure-treated
lumber for the benches and foot bridge; and numerous flowering plants,
including purple and white salvia, yellow coreopsis, and sunflower-like
echinacea purpurea.
"They
look great and also attract bees and butterflies," said Mountain Garden
Club President Wendy McVey, adding, "Bob picked them out."
"Bob"
was a name on everyone's lips Thursday because while the grant may have been
Bousquet's vision, the project was pure Santoro, from designing the undulating
walkway that goes around the building to installing the sprinkler system and
working with suppliers to get materials, either at a discount, at cost or even
at no cost.
For
instance, the stone dust for the walkways, plus use of trenchers and power
equipment, were donated by Alvin J. Coleman & Son of Albany.
Doug
and Paula Albert, owners of Maine Turf in Fryeburg, provided the sod at 50
percent off, and the Pequawket Foundation gave a $1,000 grant to help defray
the cost. The sod will be delivered next week.
Paris
Farmer's Union in North Conway gave fertilizer for the garden.
The
Gro Max premium soil is from Casella Resource Solutions of South Portland,
Maine. Eastern Green Landscapers from Intervale helped in numerous ways,
including moving
bricks
for the garden. And Flatbread Company donated enough pizza to feed the entire
hungry crew.
Santoro,
who's been working at the site with other garden club volunteers since June,
even tracked down the commercial-grade steel edging for the walkway to a
company in Garland, Texas, Collier Metal Specialties, which agreed to ship it
for free.
"He's
amazing," said garden club Vice President Deb Holmes, who said that the
club's involvement initially was a memorial garden for longtime assistant
community center director Roger Grucel, who died this year.
Then
Santoro started digging trenches, installing the sprinklers (and timers),
creating walkways from front to back of the building, prepping the lawn area,
laying the soil and the sod.
She
added that the project is "a multiyear undertaking with many community
partners and donors." For example, the garden club is also working on a
small memorial to Grucel, complete with a marker made from Redstone Quarry
granite.
As
for Sommer, he said he's blown away by the project.
"I
love what a collaborative approach it is," he said. "Seeing a big
business and a local organization working hand in hand - it's phenomenal.
That's what a community is all about."
margaret@conwaydailysun.com
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Help From the Family
Doug and family went down with Wendy to help with
finishing the project. Here John Chester and Lucy are directing Doug as he
rakes the loam just before the sod was delivered.
Reid also helped with the raking as you can tell by
his dirty knees.
Here is Reid in Bob Santoro’s bobcat just before he
flipped Bob into the air.
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Letter of Thanks from the North Conway Community
Center
