Grant allows beautification to continue at Rez

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A recent grant will enable Keep the Rez Beautiful to continue its beautification efforts at a vacant site near the Reservoir.

The Lowe’s Charitable and Education Foundation awarded the nonprofit organization a $5,000 community improvement grant, and KRB plans to use the funds to continue landscaping a four-acre site off Scenic Drive.

Native trees and shrubs will be planted to establish a wildlife sanctuary and add aesthetic value to the vacant site.

“We are transforming a vacant site into an asset,” KRB’s executive director Jeannine May. “We are looking forward to working with Lowe’s to improve the Ross Barnett Reservoir and our shoreline communities.”

KRB was one of 120 affiliates of Keep America Beautiful to receive this grant.

“Keep America Beautiful is proud of the positive impact that Keep the Rez Beautiful’s project will have in the Reservoir-area community,” said Keep America Beautiful President and CEO Matt McKenna. “We are truly grateful to Lowe’s Charitable and Educational Foundation for its support and leadership that is being demonstrated in community sustainability.”

The site is located off Scenic Drive between the Turtle Creek and Forest Point subdivision. The site fronts Turtle Creek and is property of the Pearl River Valley Water Supply District.

The state agency worked with KRB to prepare the site for a planting in March, in which 30 trees were planted as the first phase of a multi-phase project planned for the site.

“Pearl River Valley Water Supply District wants to continue to work with Keep the Rez Beautiful and other organizations to improve our Reservoir region,” said John Sigman, the agency’s executive director. “Landscaping raises land values and makes our area more enticing.”

KRB volunteers organized a public input session last year, gathering ideas from Reservoir-area residents on how to best beautify the site.

These ideas were assembled into a concept by Dave Thompson and other volunteer landscape architects. Thompson, a landscape architect for the Mississippi Department of Transportation, has joined KRB to lead the project.