PO gets a fresh look for summer

Merchants, residents and students have been pitching in during the last month to spruce up downtown Port Orchard in the last month, with some plants, some paint and a lot of scrubbing.

Members of the Port Orchard Bay Street Association and the Downtown Neighborhood Association have been going up and down Bay Street installing flower baskets, cleaning up light fixtures and refacing the building owned by Howard Minor.

Minors building is currently vacant, so the volunteers refaced and repainted the building, and are working to get a volunteer artists to come and paint a mural on the front of the building.

City Hall turned to South Kitsap High School for a little help with plants. Students in Denise Watson's horticulture class brought plants down to the front of City Hall and the Port Orchard Marina to fill in a little green space.

On Wednesday, the students came to the Marina with shovels and young plants in hand. Jade Hart, 16, said the group donated the plants and said they were just being good samaritans.

“It’s fun to get them out of class and do something they enjoy,” Watson said.

Mayor Kim Abel said City Hall asked the students for help after looking over options for more plants in public spaces.

“I recognized that bigger cities have their own greenhouses,” Abel said. “There’s no way we’re ever giong to be able to have our own green house.”

But she remembered that the high school had a green house, and asked if the school had extra plants to donate.

The Bay Street Association will continue the cleanup process sometime in June. Mallory Jackson said the merchants will continue to clean the light fixtures on the south side of Bay Street.

Jackson said the Bay Street Association is also seeking an artist to design and paint the mural on Howard Minors building.

Interested artists should contact Jackson at Custom Picture Framing by calling 876-1031.

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