Making a Momentous Impact: How Affiliates Are Improving MLK Jr. Corridors
There are over 950 Martin Luther King corridors across the United States, and this year, two Georgia affiliates received community improvement grants from Keep America Beautiful to transform and restore them. Keep Thomas County Beautiful has expanded a youth-focused garden, while Keep Macon-Bibb Beautiful revitalized a historic area with tree plantings. We got in touch with them to learn all about their projects—join us for the details!
Keep Thomas County Beautiful’s Community Teaching Garden
Keep Thomas County Beautiful launched the first phase of its community teaching garden in the summer of 2022 in partnership with the Thomasville Community Resource Center, which sits right off the city’s local MLK boulevard. Approximately 90 students from pre-K through eighth grade participate in the center’s after school and summer programs, and since the garden’s inception, they’ve played an active role in its maintenance. Last fall, they harvested and took home everything from bok choy to broccoli, and even planted four citrus trees. With the funds from this year’s grant, they were able to plant fruit and vegetables in six new aluminum raised beds.
Green practices are a must at this neighborhood hub, which aims to not only provide nutritious options for its residents, but hands-on education. Kids who participate learn firsthand where their food comes from, and help reduce pollution and waste by using compost, a rain barrel, and chemical-free fertilizers and pesticides. They also document their findings in plant journals and share their harvest with families who live nearby.
Keep Thomas County Beautiful hopes to influence other nonprofits and organizations in the area to start similar gardening projects, and it shouldn’t be difficult considering the program’s current momentum. Students often ask to head to the garden first thing upon arriving at the center. Congratulations, Thomasville—we can’t wait to see what you do next!
Keep Macon-Bibb Beautiful’s Tree Canopy Project
Keep Macon-Bibb Beautiful has used its funds to create an unparallel urban core experience in a part of the city known as the Greenwood Bottom Heritage District. This stretch of road once existed as a bustling hub for African American businesses, and local government officials and community leaders are currently working to revitalize it. Part of that plan includes improving the area’s tree canopy.
Trees are crucial to the health of a neighborhood. They absorb carbon dioxide, conserve energy, filter the air, and provide crucial sources of shade in areas otherwise dominated by concrete. They’re also beautiful to look at, and several studies have shown that they reduce psychological stress. Neighborhoods can use something called a tree equity score to measure their existing amount of trees against factors like surface temperature and population density, and Greenwood Bottom recently received a score of 55 out of 100.
That’s where Keep Macon-Bibb Beautiful comes in. This summer, they planted a total of 28 trees along the MLK Jr corridor, including maples, crabapples, and the city’s famous cherry trees. They expect the plantings to not only increase the area’s beauty, but improve resident health and small business development. Next month, they’ll partner with Bike Walk Macon to host a Play Streets Macon event to celebrate the initiative—it’s sure to be a blast, so make plans to stop by and visit the local shops if you’re in the area.
