The Operation Rejuvenation Swarm
October 24, 25 and 26, 2007 has been set to swarm the Mississippi Gulf Coast Counties with Master Gardeners from all over the country. Even though many individual projects have already been completed by Master Gardeners using funds contributed to the Operation Rejuvenation Fund, it is the goal to have many different coordinated planting projects completed during this period of concentrated work. The information below may give you or your MG Association some guidance of how projects will be coordinated and where to get some additional information and details about this project period.
We
did it.......
We have set aside October 24, 25 and 26 as the dates for concentrating people, plants and resources to have the most visible impact. There may be other individual dates that will work better for different groups and selected projects and these can be worked out with the counties, but we were trying for this “swarm” date to show the impact of master gardeners on the community.
We are asking everyone that will be coming to help, to please plan to bring their favorite garden tool and make their own lodging/meal arrangements and pick up their other expenses while in the area. This would allow us to use as much of the donated monies that we have received for plants and materials that will be brought to the sites. This will also help the local businesses that have been so devastated. So many of our coast master gardeners are still dealing with home repairs, lost jobs and insurance companies… they really got hit hard, particularly in the western coast area around Hancock County. Local lodging info is shown for the different areas where projects are planned.
Listed below are the current projects that have been received for each of the Gulf Coast Counties, including information about the project and contact information. General information about lodging and driving directions are included under the County Information section at the end of the Projects List. A Mississippi Gulf Coast map shown below that may be helpful in locating the general areas where the different projects are located.
Operation Rejuvenation Fall “Swarm Days”
Project Descriptions and Information
Gautier City Library plans to re-landscape the gardens adjacent to the facility that was damaged by Hurricane Katrina. This facility has been used by the Jackson County Master Gardeners as their monthly place for many years. Also, the landscape has been an on going project by the Master Gardeners during this time. While many plants did survive the storm it was decided that a general upgrade is necessary.
Labor: 3 volunteers for (1) 8 hr. day.
Project Contacts: Lynn McMahan, Master Gardener
E-mail: williamwlmcmahan@aol.com
Bettye Wadsworth, Extension County Director
Jackson County Extension Office
E-mail: bettyew@ext.msstate.edu
Office phone: 228-769-3047
The Pascagoula River Audubon Center was recently established on the grounds of a former riverside marina in Moss Point that sustained damage during Hurricane Katrina. In addition to a number of small buildings and one of two former homes located on the property, the site also sustained the lost of a number of trees and shrubs that were found across the site. The Center currently operates out of a small, wood-frame house that was not damaged.
Future plans for the facility include the building of a new Center Building and associated support structures across the site. Until then, the Center uses the existing grounds (six acres) and boat dock at the site to conduct its programs, designed to connect people with the habitats and flora and fauna of the Pascagoula River. About half of the site is composed of wetlands that are being restored with funds from a grant to the landowner of the site, The Land Trust for the Mississippi Coastal Plain. The Center serves tourists, local families and schools in the south Mississippi and Alabama region.
This project would involve the re-landscaping of the site to replace plants lost to the storm and to enhance the landscaping across the property. A key component of the educational mission of the Center is the focus on landscaping with native plants that, by definition, are low-maintenance. It is hoped that visitors to the site can see the value of using these species in their own yards. The overall landscaping plan of the property is; therefore, a key educational tool for the Center.
Funds will be used to purchase plants and supplies that will be incorporated into the landscape plan for the property. This project will be a partnership between Mississippi Master Gardeners and trained volunteers from the Audubon Society.
Labor: 5 volunteers for (1) 8 hr. day.
Project Contacts: Lynn McMahan, Master Gardener
E-mail: williamwlmcmahan@aol.com
Bettye Wadsworth, Extension County Director
Jackson County Extension Office
E-mail: bettyew@ext.msstate.edu
Office phone: 228-769-3047
The city of Gautier plans to re-landscape a portion of the city park adjacent to the Seniors Citizens Facility. This area was submerged with approximately six feet of water from the tidal surge of Hurricane Katrina. While the facility is under repair, the surrounding green space is available for enjoyment.
This project is a partnership with the MS Master Gardeners and the city of Gautier. The preliminary plan is to use low maintenance fruit and citrus trees, blueberry bushes as well as shrubs such as crape myrtles and oleanders.
Labor: 8 volunteers for 3 (8) hr days.
Project Contacts: Lynn McMahan, Master Gardener
E-mail: williamwlmcmahan@aol.com
Bettye Wadsworth, Extension County Director
Jackson County Extension Office
E-mail: bettyew@ext.msstate.edu
Office phone: 228-769-3047
Project 4. Crossroads Nazarene Church, Gautier
Crossroads Nazarene Church needs work to complete the landscape adjacent to the new Disaster Relief Facility in Gautier. This building is presently under construction and plans to be completed in the fall of 2007. The purpose of this facility is to house the many volunteers from across the USA that are located in the church fellowship hall and camper trailers around the church. The landscape project is a partnership with Crossroads Nazarene Church’s Youth Group and the MS Master Gardeners. The landscape presently has palms that were donated; therefore, it is suggested that additional tropical plants such as banana trees, gingers, elephant ears, etc. would be utilized to complete the project. Since so many volunteers pass this area weekly, the objective is to make the landscape an attractive site that will be part of our visitors’ memories of Mississippi.
Labor: 3 volunteers for (1) 8 hr. day.
Project Contacts: Lynn McMahan, Master Gardener
E-mail: williamwlmcmahan@aol.com
Bettye Wadsworth, Extension County Director
Jackson County Extension Office
E-mail: bettyew@ext.msstate.edu
Office phone: 228-769-3047
Project 5. Diamondhead Community Renaissance Garden, Diamondhead
Renaissance Gardens were established throughout the Gulf Coast as a tribute to survivors of Hurricane Katrina. The purpose of the project is to provide for the survivors and volunteers of Katrina a place to reconnect with the beauty of the environment and a place to walk reflect and enjoy serenity. Although it is self-governed by a Property Owner’s Association, Diamondhead consists of walking tracks, tennis courts, pavilions and lakes that are opened for public use. The roads are county roads and serve the public domain as a major thoroughfare from I-10 to several other communities. Diamondhead represents the largest tax base community in Hancock County. The South and North sides sustained severe damages to houses and businesses. Many homes were destroyed and still remain in disrepair. The Hancock County Master Gardeners are proposing to assist with the Diamondhead Renaissance Garden. The Garden is a community project with full public access. This is the only Renaissance Garden to be placed in Hancock County.
Other Project Partners include:
· Diamondhead Property Association
· Diamondhead Garden Club
Labor: 15-20 volunteers for (3) 8 hr. day.
Project Contact: Mrs. Dooley Berry, Hancock County Master Gardener
E-mail:
Phone: 228-255-1662
Project: 6 5 Hancock County School sites and County Child Development Center, Bay St. Louis, Kiln
Daffodils have been donated to Hancock County. Four total Master Gardeners will be needed to plant these bulbs at the following Project Rejuvenation Sites: Hancock High (front and back Entrance), Hancock Middle School (front and back entrance), Hancock County Child Development Center and Gulfview Elementary. All these sites are located in Kiln. The other sites are located in Bay St. Louis and are Bay High School, and Bay Middle School.
Labor: 4 volunteers for (1) 8 hr. day.
Project Contact: Marcia Freeman, Extension Program Assistant
Hancock County Extension Office
E-mail: marciaf@ext.msstate.edu
Phone: 228-467-5456
Project 7. Butterfly Garden for Hancock County Child Development Center, Kiln
The Hancock County Child Development Center was heavily damaged, but was rebuilt in a new location with donations from the Pennsylvania Buck-Mont Katrina Project. Master Gardeners and Extension Staff were involved in the coordination of landscaping the new facilities. One component was not installed which included a butterfly garden to be used as an outdoor classroom. The purpose of this project is to provide and install plant material, mulch and edging material for the butterfly garden.
Labor: 4-5 volunteers for (1) 8 hr. day.
Project Contact: Marcia Freeman, Extension Program Assistant
Hancock County Extension Office
E-mail: marciaf@ext.msstate.edu
Phone: 228-467-5456
Project 8. Master Gardeners helping Hancock County Master Gardeners & Extension Staff:
Prior to the storm, Master Gardeners numbered 36 in Hancock County. Nearly 100% of these members’ homes were heavily damaged or destroyed. When Master Gardeners reconvened in March 06, only nine MGs were able to return as a volunteer. Since their reorganization, these volunteers meet monthly, initiated a email correspondence site for homeowners, coordinate weekly scheduled visits to the office to provide assistance on technical calls, coordinated potting days for donated plants, assisted with plant give-away in Long Beach, conducted plant give-away in Hancock County, assisted with the coordination of five beautification relief projects with North Carolina and Project Rejuvenation Committee, assisted with 4-H Grow Clean Air Project in every elementary school in Bay-Waveland and Hancock County School Systems and assisted with the 4-H Environmental Arts Camp. With great personal loss of their own, these Master Gardeners continue to help others and our community to rebuild.
In addition, two Extension employees whom also have suffered great loss of their entire homes, but continue tirelessly to serve the needs of the public, are in the process of rebuilding their homes.
The purpose of this project is to help these devoted Hancock County Master Gardeners and Extension Employees to landscape their home lawns. In addition, and more importantly, this project would present an opportunity to provide both mental and physical support to our neighbors and friends in the most devastated area of Hurricane Katrina.
Labor: 15-20 volunteers for (3) 8 hr. day.
Project Contact: Marcia Freeman, Extension Program Assistant
Hancock County Extension Office
E-mail: marciaf@ext.msstate.edu
Phone: 228-467-5456
Project 9. Wildflower and Butterfly Garden – Menge Avenue, Pass Christian
It has been a long hard road trying to redesign and rework the former Wildflower and Butterfly Garden on Menge Ave in Pass Christian. It is our desire to recreate the beds by removing the old railroad ties and using another type of medium to achieve a raised bed so that it would serve the elderly and offer a place to sit so that weeding and other maintenance can be done by an aging garden club membership. The current beds have many native plants and rose bushes that can be reused in the new beds. There is a sprinkler system in place currently. An Arboretum that is currently being cleared of debris and fallen trees bounds this area. The trees are in desperate need of identification and marking.
The scope of this project: creating new raised beds, replanting plants and perhaps adding new native species, mulching, and identifying and marking of native trees within the Arboretum.
Labor: 5 volunteers for (2) 8 hr. days.
Project Contact: Renee Brooks, Master Gardener
Home phone: 228-452-9152
Cell phone: 228-342-2366
Trying to save this Live Oak Tree on Scenic Hwy 90 has been very difficult because no one seems to want to take on this project. A very old large Oak tree was inundated with salt water and as the water went out it scourged out all of the soil around the tree. This tree has been backfilled but has no system of retaining the soil. Each rain all of the soil goes onto the highway and there goes all of the donated soil. Bricks have been donated to help build a retaining wall; however, there are no where near enough. But it is a start.
It is our desire to help save this tree by having help constructing some type of barrier so that soil can be replaced around the roots of this former majestic oak.
The scope of this project: construct a retaining wall of some type to hold back soil around this old oak tree and get soil around the tree’s roots.
Labor: 2-3 volunteers for (2) 8 hr. days. Volunteers should have brick laying or construction skills.
Project Contact: Renee Brooks, Master Gardener
Home Phone: 228-452-9152
Cell phone: 228-342-2366
Once again the devastation due to Hurricane Katrina and the use of the park as a compound for the Military forces that were here to help protect the city after the storm left it a complete and utter mess. We were very blessed to have Home Depot put in a KABOOM playground and put in lots of shrubs and plants. Our park has been the commerce area for our city with the park square outlined with various trailers. As trailers leave we have been trying to restore those areas of the park. A few trailers are scheduled to be removed in the next couple of months.
It is our desire to create a recognizable entrance for the park on the North side by landscaping the sides of the walkways making it a more inviting place to visit. We would also like to redevelop the beds that flank our gazebo. The gazebo has become the symbol of Pass Christian and we would like help make it look more fitting for our park. The landscape should be in evergreens and be hardy and easy to care for since they are maintained by the city’s public works department. There is a sprinkler system in place currently throughout the park. This area is highly utilized, visible and the center of our little town and the only park that isn’t being utilized as a municipal or FEMA trailer park. We also have beds that could (of course) use weeding.
The scope of this project: creating new landscaped beds and making them as weed resistant as possible due to the lack of manpower in the city’s Public Works department.
Labor: 10 volunteers for (2) 8 hr. days.
Project Contact: Renee Brooks, Master Gardener
Home Phone: 228-452-9152
Cell phone: 228-342-2366
The DeLisle/Pass Christian Elementary has a classroom gardening program coordinated by parent/grandparent volunteers. This school campus was flooded with up to 4 ft of water. Classroom gardens suffered. The Hurricane destroyed the other three district schools and had to be temporarily relocated to the DeLisle Elementary campus. We lost much gardening space to FEMA portable classrooms, parking lots, and playgrounds.
The upper elementary FEMA portable classroom areas need sprucing. The proposal is Daffodil Planting Blitz. Last year, the students planted about 30 bulbs in a small garden and were delighted to see this color in spring. A much larger area would bring a striking color to these drab buildings! Since the school already has a gardening program in place, these flowers can be tended in such a way that the daffodils can continue blooming in this area each spring.
The Master Gardeners would help every 5th grade student understand the science behind a bulb, maybe even dissecting one, and then have each student plant 1-3 bulbs themselves. Each class usually has 20-28 students. To do an entire class project requires at least 5 gardeners to help 5-7 students at a time. The project should occur during school hours between 8:00am and 2:00pm, excluding students’ lunch around noon. Each class (total of 5 classes) will be allowed 30 minutes for their planting project. The Master Gardeners are welcome to join the students for lunch.
Because the proposed planting sites in front of the FEMA classroom portables mostly consist of fill dirt, the soil needs amending with potting soil. Note that this area was mulched with pine straw last spring, but a light covering of straw over the bulbs would also be required.
Materials Available: 5 youth size shovels, 2 adult size shovels, 8 trowels, 12 sets of gardening gloves, 3 rakes, 4 small watering cans, 1 wheel barrow
If each class is divided into 5 small groups, each group can share the garden equipment. School volunteers will also be supplying equipment from home where available.
Labor: 5-10 volunteers for (1) 8 hr. day.
Project contacts: Renee Brooks, Master Gardener
Home Phone: 228-452-9152
Cell phone: 228-342-2366
Ms. Ramona Berry, Delisle/Pass Christian Elementary Principal
Phone: 228-255-9681
Melanie Walrod, Lead Volunteer Garden Coordinator
Phone: 228-255-2786
Project 13. Pineville Elementary School – Menge Avenue, Pass Christian
This school is the hub in a community that is trying to revive itself following the destruction caused by Hurricane Katrina. Community members are rallying around the school to improve the learning environment for students/teachers and provide an encouraging focus in the community. The total project consists of 2 sections.
Section One: To weed, mulch, fertilize, amend soil, prune existing plant material; plant approximately 33 trees (to be provided). A backhoe will be rented to assist with this project.
Labor: 15 volunteers for (2-3) 8 hr. days.
Section Two: To construct a vegetable/butterfly garden for teachers and students to use as a teaching tool.
Requires breaking ground, building beds, and planting foundation plantings for garden. Some plants will be provided but plant donations are welcome. Volunteers need to brings a tiller (if available), and garden tools such as shovels, rakes and hoes.
Labor: 2-3 volunteers for (2-3) 8 hr. days.
Project Contact: Sylvia McLaurin, Master Gardener
Phone: 228/363-2508
E-mail sylvia.mclaurin@mgccc.edu
Project 14. Children’s Library, Long Beach
The City of Long Beach was devastated by Hurricane Katrina. Jeff Davis Avenue a major thoroughfare in the city was heavily impacted. An elementary school was completed demolished. Extensive damage was sustained to one city block that housed the main library, the children’s library and city government complex. The city recently reopened the Children’s Library while it continues the restoring of the remaining buildings on the block. A Boy Scout is guiding a beautification project with assistance from a local Master Gardener for the Children’s Library and area around a WWII Memorial located between the Children’s Library and the government complex for his Eagle Scout project. This block of the city is the main focus for many community events and the revitalization of the main street.
The project would focus on planters at the entrance to the Children’s Library, amending soil, possibly planting foundation materials at the memorial, weeding, pruning existing materials and mulching.
Labor: 3-5 volunteers for (1) 8 hr. day.
Project Contact: Nancy Freeman, County Extension Director
Harrison County Extension Office
Phone: 228-865-4227
E-mail nfreeman@ext.msstate.edu
The county director is submitting this project. She has had the rare privilege to watch courage in action. Courage is not action in the absence of fear but action in the presence of fear. Many unknowns faced Harrison County Master Gardeners. They suffered untold damage from Hurricane Katrina. Despite many living in FEMA trailers and other less than desirable situations, they persevered and continued to reach out to others in our county and their communities. They recommitted to the “Gardens in the Landscape” project they had begun prior to the storm at the Extension office in downtown Gulfport in an area where much devastation was visible among businesses. They have completed all phases of the project and are continuing with a maintenance plan.
Gardens were developed at 2 elementary schools and 2 high schools to provide educational opportunities for students/teachers and a calming environment in the very disrupted post-Katrina world. Master Gardeners gave time and expertise to teaching residents in a ravaged area of Biloxi how to grow gardens for beauty and vegetable produce in a community garden. Two plant give-aways were coordinated with coastal MG and horticulture enthusiasts/MG from Oktibbeha County providing plant materials and trees to residents from all across the MS Gulf Coast. The horticulture hotline was reopened and maintained to assist the local office with answering the cries for help from residents wanting to save precious trees, home landscapes and heirloom plants. Harrison County MG served as host for 2 Master Gardener Intern courses and have regularly held monthly meetings, participated in educational tours and continuing education offerings.
Tirelessly they served even though their own homes and lives were in turmoil. Though it has been 2 years many still have daily struggles but continue to serve others before themselves. It is our responsibility to help our own Master Gardeners. They are an invaluable resource to the recovery of the MS Gulf Coast.
To assist 10 local MG with reclaiming their own landscapes. Tasks will be at the discretion of individual MG based on their needs. May include such projects as weeding, planting foundation materials, raising beds, container gardens, planting trees. Volunteers would be providing physical support as well as mental/emotional support to members of the MG fellowship.
Labor: 10-20 volunteers for series of (1) 8 hr. day projects.
Project Contact: Nancy Freeman, County Extension Director
Harrison County Extension Office
Phone: 228-865-4227
E-mail nfreeman@ext.msstate.edu
Project 16. Marine Sculpture Garden Highway 90 Median, Biloxi
The Marine Sculpture Garden project is high in visibility and will have
great community impact. The City of Biloxi commissioned an artist to
create marine animals from several of the dead oaks on Hwy. 90 along the
beach. This garden has now been fenced and an irrigation system will
soon be installed. We have a landscape architect who is currently
working on thedesign. We would be honored to have Operation Rejuvenation
Master Gardeners plant the garden. We will have other volunteers there
if needed.
Labor: 6 volunteers for (2) 8 hr. days
Project Contact: Nancy Freeman, County Extension
Director
Harrison County Extension Office
Phone: 228-865-4227
E-mail nfreeman@ext.msstate.edu
Map of Mississippi Gulf Coast Cities and Counties -- You may find it helpful in comparing distances and in you planning of where to work.
Other Links related to Operation Rejuvenation are listed below:
Again, our sincere thanks to the many generous people who have contributed time, money and energy in bringing back the Mississippi Gulf Coast!