Gabby Milewczik and Susan Lettis look on as Kathy Varadi plants spring flowers in downtown Oneonta. (Photo by Marcia Kozubek)

Plantings Spruce Up Main Street
in Time for Parade

By MARCIA KOZUBEK
ONEONTA

The annual Memorial Day parade has been a point of community pride in Oneonta, but empty planters downtown have had a lackluster appearance.

Complaints about the vacant garden plots caught the attention of Susan Lettis, a member of the Oneonta Federated Garden Club. She said while the club remains committed to filling 36 downtown planters with annuals on June 2, those flowers would be too fragile to plant before the parade.

“It would take something hardier,” she said.

In November, Lettis submitted a $1,000.00 grant application to the Oneonta Community Initiative, which funds requests for small projects. Destination Oneonta administers those funds.

The request was approved soon after, Lettis said.

Grant funds will also support a second project to install perennials in areas sectioned off by wrought iron fencing, Lettis added.

Lettis praised Public Works Director Christopher Yacobucci and his crew for readying the planters with fresh compost. After that, Lettis met her volunteers at the Kim Muller Plaza on April 10 to fill the planters.

Now, parade goers will be treated to cheerful pansies, dusty miller and kale.