Dedicated volunteers make it happen
Story & Photos by Jen Kocher/For NLJ
This is Anne Hanson’s favorite time of the year, she admits, as she unpacks the crates of flowers and organizes them in her backyard greenhouse.
Plastic trays of canna lilies, petunias, and salvias fill the shelves as Hanson tests soil moisture and rearranges plastic trays. It’s up to Hanson to nurse the tenuous buds along to full bloom, and eventually they’ll be replanted in the coal cars and planters throughout downtown and the city.
“It’s a labor of love,” according to Hanson, who along with friends Marsha Halliday and Ann McColley, originally initiated and now maintain flower handling responsibilities. The group, who collectively refer to themselves as “We Go Girls,” have been beautifying Newcastle for the past 14 years. It began with hanging flower baskets outside of downtown storefronts and eventually morphed into coal car planters six years ago.