BUCKHANNON – The Consolidated Public Works Board approved a request to place a pollinator garden in one of Buckhannon’s parks.  

Colonial Arts Center manager Anne Wilson attended the Feb. 23 Consolidated Public Works Board meeting to receive approval to start constructing the garden.

“Back in October, I attended a conference in North Carolina with a team of seven people from Upshur and Lewis counties. We sat through many presentations and workshops and learned a lot about community development in Appalachia,” Wilson said. “We returned home from the conference with this vision of teaming up with our counties and working on starting with some small outdoor projects and expanding from there, and we had a seed grant opportunity presented to us, so we applied for the seed grant for $5,000, and we came up with this idea to put pollinator gardens, one in each county and each will have four storyboard art signs.”

The purpose of a pollinator garden is to provide a home to plants that provide food and shelter to pollinators — for example, bees — that pollinate plants and, in turn, support the local ecosystem and food web.

Wilson said they have already received feedback from Buckhannon Parks and Recreation Advisory Board members, who suggested putting the garden at the property on Madison Street near Jawbone Park or the Fred Brooks Park on Marion Street. 

“Here in the next couple of weeks, the next step is to organize a meeting with [City Public Works Director] Jerry Arnold and [City Horticulturist] Dixie Green, myself and probably Ray Lewis from Lewis County, so we’ll all get together and map out where this is going to go,” Wilson said.

She also suggested using the same type of signs in other city parks for the storyboards.

“I think it would be a great idea if we could keep the same frames that we have in mind for the other park signs,” Wilson said. “We want to use those for the frames of the storyboards because the idea for the storyboards is to keep them blank in the center, with a frame where they can be interchangeable, so we can put different events in there to advertise what’s going on in the community.”

In other Consolidated Public Works Board news:

• The board approved an event request from the Buckhannon Lions Club to have an Easter Egg Hunt on Saturday, April 8, at Buckhannon City Park from 8 a.m. to noon.

• The board approved an event request to host the Green Bean Stroll at Poundstone Riverwalk Trail Saturday, August 12, from 8:30 a.m. to noon.

• The board approved an event request to host the West Virginia Classic Wheels Car Club Labor Day Car Show at North Buckhannon Riverfront Park on Monday, Sept. 4, from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m.