By Matt Hall
B103 Rockford
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ROCKFORD — Great things can happen when a community comes together.
A donation from a local nursery will help extend beautification of Rockford’s Veterans Memorial Circle at the North Main and Auburn streets roundabout into the holiday season and the rest of the year.
Village Green, a nearby garden center that supplies some of the flowers to Friends of Veterans Memorial Circle, is donating 32 emerald-green arborvitae trees. Volunteers will plant the trees behind four monument walls, providing year-round color and a foundation for stringing holiday lights.
Since 2019, the volunteer-run organization has been raising money to buy and plant thousands of spring and summer flowers to beatify the roundabout. Adding evergreens to the monument walls was a far-off milestone.
“After fall cleanup at the end of our first year, we were sad to see all the color disappear. Since then, our goal has been to keep this area looking its best all year round,” Ernie Redfern, co-chair of Friends of Veterans Memorial Circle, said in a news release. “Village Green has been with us from the beginning in our effort to make this part of Rockford a fitting tribute to our military veterans and their families.”
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Although this project accepts no public money, Redfern, who is project manager of the annual plantings and summer-long maintenance of the 6,500 square feet of beautified grounds, provides regular updates to the city’s Public Works Department.
“Veterans Memorial Circle is such an important project to the community. Raising awareness for our veterans and honoring their service is something Village Green is proud to be a part of,” Jessica Salisbury, CEO of Village Green, said in a news release. “This project also has created such a bright and beautiful spot on the west side of Rockford. We knew that these trees were something they had wanted for a couple of years. Making this donation was something Village Green was thrilled to do!”
This spring’s Spruce Up Day at Veterans Memorial Circle is Saturday, May 14. During the daylong planting marathon – from 8:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. – community volunteers will also be planting 10,000 flowers to beautify more than 6,500 square feet of streetscape near downtown Rockford.
According to Martin Bloom, special events coordinator for the city of Rockford, this is the city’s biggest volunteer- driven beautification project and the city’s biggest community service project.
Information about the project and how to help can be found at rockfordveteranscircle.org or follow Friends of
Veterans Memorial Circle on Facebook.