Medfield Garden Club Request for Funding for TASC (Town Area Sites)

The Medfield Garden Club is requesting $2500 from the Town of Medfield’s Local Meal Tax Fund to defray the cost of renovation for several of its civic planting sites and to contribute to the ongoing maintenance of the club’s twenty-three sites in town.

The Medfield Garden Club was  established in 1933 for the purpose of community beautification, conservation, and education. The first civic plantings by the club were done in 1935 when Medfield Garden Club members planted trees at schools and the police station. The club has a long history of volunteerism in town. The Medfield Garden Club currently maintains twenty-three TASC sites around Medfield with four season interest. The sites include the Town Hall and the Medfield Public Library, the stone planters at the entrances to the town serving as a welcome to Medfield, and many island and container gardens  within the downtown area.  These sites require the year-round efforts of thirty-five Medfield Garden Club volunteers and a budget of $4900. In addition to the twenty-three island and container gardens, the Medfield Garden Club provides the winter wreaths, swags, and greens for the Town House, the Medfield Public Library and the gazebo.

Rationale

For nearly eighty-five years, the club has self-funded its efforts to maintain its civic beautification sites through two major fundraisers:  a spring plant sale and a winter holiday greens sale. Unfortunately, over time, these fundraisers have contributed less and less to our revenue due to increased competition with inexpensive nursery or outlet stock, fewer people gardening and more people having landscapers buy and install plants for homeowners and rising prices on the cost of our materials.

The Medfield Garden Club is in need of financial assistance to perform our site renovations and ongoing maintenance. We are requesting that the Town of Medfield partner with us to ensure the continuation of our beautification efforts in the community. The Medfield Garden Club is committed to keeping these twenty-three sites looking their best season to season and year to year. With that goal in mind, the club began making major changes to our TASC sites starting this spring in 2017. Renovations will continue through the summer of 2018.

Schedule and Scope of Work

We are transitioning from annuals, which are expensive, water hungry plants, to native plants, to more drought resistant  perennials and to dwarf shrubs. This plan is expensive for start-up costs, but we expect it will pay off over the years with more consistent beauty and hardier plants and with lower maintenance and watering needs. We are utilizing non-toxic water saving crystals in most of the container gardens to further reduce watering needs.

We are also in the process of renovating several sites to neaten and provide continuity among the island gardens with granite curbing and an edging of river stone and mulch. Bobby Kennedy and the DPW crew have been very responsive and helpful as we make some of these hardscaping upgrades. The DPW did a wonderful job building the stone planters at the entrances to Medfield, the DPW site, and at Knollwood and South Streets. The stone planters were installed one at a time over the last several years and are a beautiful welcome into our community.

Additionally, we working with John Thompson to include stone and other artifacts from the Medfield State Hospital to serve as focal points in the island gardens that bookend the Hospital district.

The combination of these efforts will result in more aesthetically pleasing gardens that will be easier and less costly to maintain in terms of worked hours,  dollars and water usage.

Summary

Michele Feinsilver, president of the Medfield Garden Club, and I had a recent discussion with Mr. Sullivan who suggested that we request funding from the Local Meals Tax Fund, since most of our sites are within the downtown area and go a long way towards enhancing the appearance of the Town to residents and passersby. To that end, we are requesting $2500 from the Town of Medfield for the renovation and maintenance of our twenty-three sites. All thirty-five of our TASC site volunteers report community members stopping to admire the club’s plantings and to thank us for all we do to beautify the town.

Thank you for your consideration and contribution to our ongoing volunteer efforts.

Nancy Tella

Chairperson, TASC Sites

Medfield Garden Club

Locations of the 2017 Medfield Garden Club TASC Sites

DPW Stone Planter

Harding and West Mill Streets

Hospital Road and Harding Streets

Hospital Road and Route 27

Hospital Road at McCarthy Field

Library Containers

Library In-ground, Native Shade Garden and Walkways

Meeting House Pond

North and Farm Street

North and Harding Streets

North and Pine Streets

North Street and Route 109

Safety Building, Dale Street

Route 109 and Causeway Streets

Route 109 and Hartford Street

Route 109 East Stone Planter

Route 109 West Stone Planter

Route 27 South Stone Planter

Routes 109 and 27

South and Knollwood Streets

South and Philip Streets

South Street Extension and Route 27

Town Hall

Total TASC Four Season Budget 2017

Costs for soil, plant material, annuals and perennials, holiday and seasonal decorations for individual sites and containers

In-ground Sites                                 12@$150 each                                                                  $1800

Small Containers                              7@$150 each                                                                    $1050

Large Containers                              8@$200 each                                                                    $1600

Town Hall/Library/Gazebo Winter Greens

Six (6) large wreaths, two (2) regular wreaths, ten (10) swags                                       $ 450

Total TASC Budget for 2017                                                                                                          $4900

Volunteer Hours Necessary to Maintain Sites

The Medfield Garden Club has one TASC coordinator who oversees all sites and site managers. The club has thirty-five site managers who are responsible for planting, weeding and watering on a weekly or twice weekly basis depending on the specific site needs, weather and time of year. Currently, mulch, river stones and curbing is provided by the Town DPW. Water continues to be a pressing issue at most sites and safety is always a concern because the sites are primarily located on highways and byways.