It’s the Most FABulous Time of the Year
Quick quiz: Do you know what FAB stands for in Clinton, Iowa? The answer is a fun one! FAB stands for Flower And Beautification, and it’s our “adopt a planter” program that beautifies our town.
FAB began with planters along the riverfront and has expanded over the past few years, with yet one more expansion taking place for 2024. Read on for all the details!
It begins with our CVB Assistant, Kristine, who coordinates the program. She has already reached out to our past volunteers to check on their availability for this summer. If you think you should have received an email from her but you haven’t, check your spam folder, or send us an updated email address. You can reach Kristine at cvbintern@growclinton.com.
Each volunteer group or individual will be assigned a location that is theirs to care for this summer. Once the pots have had their top soil refreshed, (thank you to the City of Clinton doing this for us each year!), the volunteers take care of each aspect of planting their plot. They design, select, and purchase their plants, get them potted, and throughout the summer they water and weed. GrowClinton will provide a sign for each planter that says what organization is providing that location’s care.
Many of our volunteers are groups from civic organizations. For example, the Cleaning Up Clinton group maintains the very large flower pots located by the Riverview Bandshell, and the Clinton Moose usually adopts a planter near the Showboat Theatre entrance. For profit businesses participate as well, donating their supplies, and volunteer time to keep our town beautiful. For this example, I think of Clinton Printing which maintains the large planter that surrounds 3 sides of the Freedom Rock.
Another business that gives back this way is Sedona Staffing. Not only do they adopt one or more flower pots themselves, but they also apply for an annual grant that they then donate to this program. Thanks to Sedona’s donation, and this year to a matching donation from Hy-Vee, we are able to provide a number of gift cards to the HyVee garden center for start-up supplies. In the past we were limited to the first 10 volunteers that registered, but with HyVee matching those fees we can offer these funds to the first 20 volunteers who get signed up.
In fact, if you are a business that would like to help out with this part of the program, we’d love to talk to you! We’ll accept cash donations to increase these funds, or gift cards to other garden centers in the area.
As mentioned earlier, this program began along the riverfront with a limited number of planter boxes. Each year we have increased our volunteer base and the locations that get adopted. We have expanded the program to include 17 flower pots along the river, as well as a few other strategic locations in town. This year we have met with the Downtown Clinton Alliance and agreed to care for the public flower pots along 5th Avenue South, which will give us another 10 locations. We hope to continue adding more locations in future years!
If you would like to volunteer for this program, we need you! Please email Kristine at cvbintern@growclinton.com, or call or stop by the Grow Clinton offices.