Start your own beautification project

I’ll be traveling to a small county in Nevada to help with a beautification project.  So will Becky later on – it’s part of an Intensive, Idea Friendly Package.

This is at least a six-month project. Back in my chamber days, this kind of thing would scare the bejesus* out of me. It would involve endless meetings with boring, important-feeling people. No talking to the folks like you and me who do the work. Jobs would be assigned with no choice in what you want to participate in. If it made it to the jobs stage. So much planning and so little action. It was not Idea Friendly, and there were no small steps you could try first to see if your idea could work.

Idea Friendly Beautification

Joliet, Montana, did. their own beautification project and it was Idea Friendly. A group of interested citizens got together and started taking small steps.

• The Booster Club purchased flags to be hung. Trees surrounded some flagpoles, so they cleaned that up.
• The bulletin board on the main road was in dire straits, so a few people got together and cleaned that bulletin board up.
• Flo stood up and said she’d write some grants for small funding from the local Farm Credit Bureau.
• The historic wagon on the main road needed some spiffing up, and they thought flowers would be nice. Gina said she’d clean it up and get the weeds out. Flo was going to talk to the Garden Club about it. Jim wanted to start a flower bed in the spring.
• Karla was working on the pocket park. Getting permission, writing grants, that kind of thing.
• Somebody painted benches downtown.
• and somebody else parked an old truck on the Main Street.

There are only 577 people in this small town.

They knew it takes getting started to get started.

Magic happens in those small steps.

images above: The wagon dressed for Halloween, the old truck, painted bench and the bulletin board. photos by me