The active Caldwell Park neighborhood is thrilled to be certified in the STAR Neighborhood program.
So far, they’ve completed the following actions:
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Develop a Neighborhood Communications Network: An email and phone list is actively maintained.
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Establish Leadership and Goals: Jaime, Archana, and Jenny have been named as leaders of the Caldwell Park neighborhood. Goals established thus far include developing a local green infrastructure example, establishing the Neighborhood Buddy Program, and organizing a hard-to-recycle collection.
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Host a Neighborhood Gathering: On 5/19/19, a neighborhood meeting was convened to learn more about the STAR Neighborhood program.
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Demonstrate a Low-Waste Celebration: Hosts of the 9/15/19 neighborhood picnic provided washable plates, cups, and silverware, and collected food waste for one family’s chickens.
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Neighborhood Tree Planting: At the neighbor’s request, the Watershed Institute provided a planting plan for Caldwell Park to alleviate downstream flooding. The neighborhood then voted to accept the recommendation to plant trees around the border of Caldwell Park and submitted this request to the municipality. In October 2019, four trees were planted, with the plan to plant more in the spring.
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Join the Neighborhood Buddy Initiative: In March 2020, neighbors distributed flyers for the NBI, a priority action.
- Hard-to-Recycle Collection: In July 2020, neighbors began a monthly collection of bottle caps, dairy cups, prescription bottles, and take-out boxes for contribution to a local plastics #5 collection.
- Materials Collection Event Drives: In September 2020, neighbors gathered supplies to consolidate so only one person needed to drive to the MCIA hazardous waste collection.
- Establish Low-Maintenance, Low-Mow Areas:Â In the summer of 2021, neighbors rolled out a large plastic tarp to prepare a 25×75′ area of Caldwell park for a meadow. In the fall of 2021, neighbors pulled up the tarp and smoothed out a 5-6″ layer of compost. Seedlings and seeds of three different native plants were planted. All supplies were purchased using a STAR Neighborhood mini-grant.
- Host a Deer Management Seminar: On November 1, 2021 neighbors invited Jim Ferry, Animal Control Officer, to describe the need for deer management and provide an overview of strategies applicable to the neighborhood.
- Materials Collection Event Drives: In March 2022, neighbors gathered supplies to consolidate so only one person needed to drive to the MCIA hazardous waste collection.
- Maintain Low-Maintenance, Low-Mow Areas: In the spring of 2022, neighbors pulled up an invasion of the non-native pennycress and reseeded the area with more purple coneflowers.
- Host a Neighborhood Yard Sale: In the fall of 2022, 15 households got together to host a neighborhood yard sale. They jointly advertised the event (newspaper & social media) but each managed their own sales in their driveway. (Action: +50 points!)
Way to go Caldwell Park. Keep it coming!
