2008 Butterfly Show ... The Silk Road ... April 19th - June 15th ... Krohn Conservatory, Eden Park

St Catharine's Festival - May 16, 17, and 18 @ Harvest Home Park

Westwood Town Hall looked beautiful yesterday for the many visitors to our community yesterday for the Westwood Home Tour. We can all take pride in our efforts to beautify our community Saturday Morning, 4/26/08 from the grounds around the Town Hall to the Westwood Elementary cleanup effort, to Dater Montessori clean up effort, to the many volunteers picking up litter along Montana, Harrison, and Queen City Avenue.

There are many people to thank that helped out at the Westwood Town Hall and that is also an important job to do. We all want to be appreciated for the time and effort we take on behalf of our community.

THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU!!!

Gayle & Mike Rece- without their efforts Friday evening working at supersonic speeds with their own backhoe and motorized wheel barrow for 2 1/2  hours moving 5 big piles of mulch into about 30 small piles of mulch.  If not for their efforts, we would still be distributing mulch around the grounds today.  In addition, all their work inspired Lou Sand with the Park Board to have his crew bring us 3 more loads of mulch Saturday morning  to expand the playground area that had been a big mud area.

Mary Dorn, our horticulturalist from the Park Board brought us a truck load of pansies, lilies, and pavers.  She also spent the morning building retaining walls to help with the wash out area by our tool shed.

New volunteers, Cleola Gordon Linton and her son Quienton B. The Gordons single-handedly spread 3 loads of mulch in the new extended playground area as well as helped Mary with the new retaining wall area.

Rose LaFleur,  a new volunteer and a parent from Mercy High School stepped in as our "office manager" to get everyone to sign in, fill out forms, and keep things going smoothly.

Our gardening engineers, Lu Ann Zeszut, Mary Fitcher, Lisa Conner, Valerie Baumann Angela Sheehan, and Ken Tarvin  who worked with groups of Mercy High School students planting hundreds of plants in our gardens around the property.

Other volunteers that helped where ever they were needed including Keegan Ryan, Jerry Blecher, Brent Hodge, Ndeye Diouf John Donovan, John Kipples and I am sure a few more that just didn't get around to signing up on our sheet.

Colette Thompson and other parents and students from Dater Montessori who spent the morning cleaning up around their old school grounds while it also is in transition. In addition, Collette brought us some more beautiful pansies that we planted at Westwood Town Hall.

Thanks to Marlene Trapp the Director of the Westwood Town Hall for staffing the building so we could use the facility for restroom access.

There were 26 students from Mercy High School who were our amazing work force.  Hopefully I am spelling their names from their writing correctly:  Thanks to Allie Harrington, Casey Schrenker, Elizabeth Harig, Mandy Stephens, Mary Mersmann, Destinee Thacker, Allison Cremering, Katie Dowling, Haley Smit, Ashley Tomlinson, Cassondra Dreiling, Melissa Farmer, Jennifer Hein, Emily McManan, Abby Federmann, Alexis McMahan, Maria Sabato, Renee Reder, Allie Hart, Emma Jones, Aubrey Schulz, Mary Petrocelli, Lainey Dugan, Kari Davis, Aly Ruch, and Maria Huber.

We also inspired a clean up of the grounds by the student council of Westwood Elementary under the direction of Mr. Bill Wotering and a few other wonderful volunteers from their staff. Thanks to the following students who spent the morning raking leaves and debris which filled up over 64 bags.  Thanks to: Kianna Sandford, Tyreeshia Barder, DaVaughn Blue, JaWaun Stonestreet, Kyle Butler, Jonathan Anderson, David Blue, Patricia Jackson, Paul Jackson, Nathaniel Jackson, Sonja Berry, Berauna Berry, Brianna Ross, and Jerome Heil.

Thanks to the Cincinnati Park Board who gave us t-shirts for the volunteers,  a $25 gift card to Kroger, and  pizza from Papa John's for all of our community volunteers and thanks to Keep Cincinnati Beautiful for drinks , t-shirts, and organizing the debris pick up. We had about 20 bags just from the Westwood town Hall site.

Thanks finally to my husband Stuart Golder, who has worked with me the past six years volunteering at the Westwood Town Hall grounds.  He is a master at moving mulch and pruning. It takes a lot of time for me to organize the volunteers as well as writing and sending out epic emails - like this one.

Finally, thanks to the heavens above for the rain last night so we don't have to water our new plantings.

Peg Rhein

Westwood Town Hall Garden Volunteer Coordinator

paperpeg@cinci.rr.com