Current Projects
Judy and Gene Jacobi Community Center
The Center is located at 10 Humphrey Street and is the home to both the Marblehead Recreation & Parks Department and the Marblehead Council on Aging. With the dedication of the new sign and naming of the facility, a native garden bed was established. This bed is at the right of the entrance.
This project will involve the creation of garden beds along the Humphrey Street side of the building. There are six double windows on that side of the building. Garden beds will be created at each of the six locations. They will be roughly 20 to 25 ft.² each. These will be part of the Marblehead Pollinator Pathway.
A focus here will be to create beauty in a suburban environment by using native plant materials that are particularly important to pollinators. Our goal will be to create beds that over time will require little or no management. They will express seasonal beauty appropriate for Marblehead.
Specific designs that create habitat will be created by a landscape architect. There will be an opportunity for a donor to make a suggestion or a request, but these six designs will be the guideline. They will be individual designs that all work together to achieve the overall goal.
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Each bed costs $2,000. A single donor can take a bed by themselves, or several donors together can support an individual bed.
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Project Budget: $12,000
Donations to date: $0
Remaining Available: $12,000
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Chandler Hovey Park
A new granite sign was donated by the Hannaway Family three years ago. It identifies the park and was given in memory of Paul and Bunny Hanaway. They were neighborhood residents. Bunny took it upon herself to take care of this park daily with walk-throughs driven by a general love of the property and caring about how it looked.
It is a historic property, with the light tower and the oil house. The Recreation & Park Commission has worked over the past several years to maintain the nature of this property as a natural environment. There will be ongoing work here over the next two years. We would like the planting of the sign to fit in with all our previous work.
Our goal here is to plant around the sign. The sign is a granite slab elevated 3 feet above the ground. It is sizable. Our desire here is to plant in front of, behind, and to the left of the sign. A landscape bed and design will be established and pre-approved. This is not a site where we will be looking to plant strictly ornamentals and plants generally considered to be showy. This will be a native planting suitable to the severe location. The bed is established and there will be a design created by a landscape architect. The goal is to create native beauty that will sustain itself and not be labor-intensive.
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We have met our fundraising goal and look forward to designing, building, and planting the native planting bed.
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Project Budget: $5,415
Donations to date: $5,415
Remaining Available: $0
Gatchell’s Green
When entering Marblehead from Salem, Gatchell’s Green is the first Town property that one sees. When coming in Lafayette Street, it is on the right and is bordered by Maple Street, Lafayette Street, and Birch Street. This area is part of the Passive Park system. It is 1.4 acres of
adapted grasses, shrubs, and trees.
It is important to the neighborhood as well as the overall aesthetic when entering Marblehead. Within the footprint of Gatchell’s Green is Glabicki Field. This is a low impact athletic field only permitted for young children. It is a goal of this project to revitalize this property.
The Recreation & Park Commission is beginning an effort to address this property over the next two years. A post and rail fence will be installed around the perimeter and the minor overgrown bushes along Lafayette Street will be removed. The trees are being selectively pruned. Two elm trees that have issues were pruned severely to regenerate new growth as opposed to being cut down. This is to be a living, teaching example on the appropriate way to take care of plant material of any size.
Along the fence there will be planting beds created. They are intended to accommodate varying types of native plant material that will be both aesthetically pleasing and functional with low maintenance. Specific areas will be identified an overall planting design is being created. Any suggestions by a donor will be addressed by the committee to accommodate for favorite plants or bushes as long as they fit in with the overall goal of native plantings appropriate for Marblehead. Planting here is also going to be part of the Marblehead Pollinator Pathway.
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This is the overall cost of this project excludes the fence. There will be opportunities to donate to create areas with both large and small plantings.
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Project Budget: $30,000
Donations to date: $0
Remaining Available: $30,000
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