Dear Friends,

On May 5^th, 2012, my friends Catharine Cooke and Ian Gribble entered Hartford’s First Annual Landscape Designers Challenge:  “Transforming Hartford One Block at a Time” 

Catharine and Ian joined thirteen other designers to transform one block of Ashley Street in the Asylum Hill Neighborhood of Hartford and donated their time and expertise to rejuvenate several Victorian-style, homeowner-occupied front yards on this historic street. They gathered on a cold, rainy day in February to plan and then performed several remarkable yard transformations early this month; through their design and inspiration, they made a difference in a few lives.

Often, philanthropy seeks to work on a macro-scale. What impact can we make, and what outcomes will we generate? How many lives will be transformed? Every once in a while, you can make a difference by spending a day volunteering and turning something bleak into something beautiful; this can have it’s own significant impact, even if it may appear to be on a small scale.

My friend Catharine noted, “As a result of our efforts (& funds!) the son of the owner remarked to us as we were leaving: “Now, to see it all done, makes a person want to take care of things better! The owner of one of the homes has asked her cousin to come down and fix the front stoop. So it’s a start…. and, it’s the reason we got involved in the first place!”

Congratulations Catharine and Ian … and to everyone who makes a difference one blade of grass at a time! The images featured in this post are the “before and after” shots of the yard they transformed!

For more photos, click here:  http://www.springlakedesign.com/hartford.html

To learn more about the project, check out the challenge website! http://www.landscapedesignerschallenge.com