Volunteers create green space at city's newest parking lot: Project demonstrates city, volunteers working together

The sounds of trumpet practice from a nearby house served as a daily reminder to Joyce Casper and Ford Loverin for why they volunteered to take on the project.

For three days in early May, the duo oversaw the beautification of Metropolis’ newest public parking lot, located at the corner of Sixth and Pearl streets, just over a block from the Superman statue.

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In June 2021, the City of Metropolis purchased the property at 604 and 608 Pearl St. to become a parking lot and the location of the city's public restrooms. Casper said it was going into early fall when she "was just catching wind of it." At the city council's Dec. 13, 2021, meeting, she and Loverin voiced their concerns about placing the parking lot in the middle of an established neighborhood.

But by that point, "plans had already been established," she said, and they did not include the funding for green space with properly designed drainage.

That left Casper "trying to figure out how to move forward with it, knowing it probably wouldn't work out like I envisioned. But I decided I wanted to get something in here."

She and Loverin banded together and became the volunteer co-founders of the Pearl Street Parking Lot Beautification Project.

"We wanted to help the city be able to expand its beautification projects and get a softer look of some of the parking lot's hardscape and see if we could landscape it to help the neighborhood it's right in the middle of," Loverin said. "All of the neighbors here, this is what they look at. We wanted to give it a softer look and some color."

After further discussions with Metropolis Mayor Don Canada and City of Metropolis Public Works Department director Natalie Harris, a compromise was reached. While the parking lot itself was planned, there were still the right-of-way area on the Sixth Street side to work with.

Once that decision was made, Casper and Loverin got others involved.

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Casper began by going "through this whole neighborhood asking people for support on this," she said.

Then, Metropolis Garden Club member Beth Moller and president Anne Parmley surveyed the area and "gave some suggestions on what we should do," Casper said. "Ford had the idea of making it a wider flat area by putting railroad ties in," which turned the sloping ground into a two-tiered planting area.

"We wanted to plant trees, but the utilities are right here, so we went with three smaller shrubs, that are native species, on the top level. In between (the shrubs) will be perennials that won't need much maintenance over time, except for initial watering," she continued. "On the lower level, we’ll do more perennial plants and ground cover."

With plans in mind, Casper met again with Canada and Harris "when we were getting ready to plant in the spring. We went over all the details of who was going to provide what.

"The city has been so helpful in getting us a free source for the railroad ties and being able to use the backhoe to help eliminate so much intensive labor on the digging," she continued. "They gave us the rebar rods to help secure the railroad ties. They helped provide us with the drill bits and drill."

The railroad ties were used to construct the tiers out of the right-of-way. Loverin said that by the city finding the ties, it helped keep the cost of the project down. The city also provided locally sourced mulch, two of the three shrubs, installed a spigot on the outside of the restroom building to provide water access for the area and helped with some manpower.

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Work on the area began May 1 and was carried out over three days.

"Ford's been saying all along in this project that you can give your plans, but they don't always work out," Casper said. "It's an art to get the finer details worked out as you’re going along. That has happened several times in the past couple of days."

Actually, it happened almost from the word "go."

One of the first projects was to create the tier structure by drilling the railroad ties together, which Paul Henson and Ricky Henson assisted Loverin with. However, "the drill we’d prepared wasn't cutting it, and it was going to take too long," Casper said, noting the Massac County High School ag students/Future Farmers of America members, along with their teacher/sponsor Jenny Bergmann, were scheduled to come on the second day.

Tier construction, Loverin said, was "getting (the other work) stacked up a little," and after some searching, they found a new drill.

"There was truly a Superman from the light department who brought that drill. I could tell they were really glad they were helping," Casper said.

City crew members from the light and street departments Jimmy Sullenger, John Ryan, Caitlyn Parrish, Mike Eastwood, Mike Gentry, Zach Baker, Alex Bradford and Nathan Lott "got it," Loverin observed. "They really understood what this can do and how it can soften the whole hardscape here."

Once that drill arrived, "we were done within a half hour. They were superheroes," Loverin said. "It's one of those examples of something we thought we had completely planned out, and then we started doing it. It was a wonderful coming to the rescue situation."

Along with the Metropolis Light Department, the Metropolis Street Department also assisted by using backhoes to move the soil and help set the railroad ties in place. Their help, Casper and Loverin emphasized, meant "we made so much progress, all the sudden we were ready for the mulch, which needed to be here when the ag students got here."

Casper said Memry Davis, Massac County Farm Bureau ag literacy coordinator, "was really instrumental in getting me connected with the ag students. I saw those students helping her with the pollinator garden at the (Metropolis Public) library and how focused they were. I wanted them to help with this project, too."

After the ag students placed and leveled out the three inches of mulch on the top tier, other volunteers — including neighborhood volunteers John and Tammy Wells and Metropolis Chamber of Commerce president Ericca Arthur — began arriving May 4 to plant the donated shrubs and perennials, place donated wire and additional chicken manure around the shrubs and water it all down with a donated hose.

"There were lots of hands on this one," Loverin said. "Lots of people doing lots of work."

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Casper and Loverin aren't finished with the Pearl Street Parking Lot Beautification Project. While this summer will mean a lot of watering to get the plantings established, "over the course of time, it’ll be a work in progress," he said. "We’re going to learn from each year what we need to do and fill in the gaps here and there. Our vision is there will be a volunteer group that will help continue the plantings, do the weeding and water as needed."

But more than creating new green space in the city, the project "helps the community get a little closer because we work together to get something done. It's also developing a volunteer spirit in Metropolis. Getting this group going, there's no end of projects that we can do," Loverin said.

Canada agrees.

"They did a great job on the parking lot," Canada said. "There are a lot of places around town that we can make more appealing as time and money allows us. They are going to do the small section that goes with the (new) Happy Hearts senior citizens building (the former Save-A-Lot property). Hopefully, we can do the Pearl Street side of the city parking lot, too."

Loverin reflected that "the challenge for the city working with volunteers is they really have to be able to stay with a project. It's not something that gets done in a week or two, it takes months. You’ve got to be there and bring the volunteers. You’ve got to get the project done," he said. "That's a hard thing. Joyce has been wonderful about keeping with it, keeping her nose to the grindstone."

Casper said it's been Loverin who's "supported me every step of the way.

"It's been a great demonstration of the city and the volunteers working together. It's really a beautiful thing that people can work together to make this happen. It gives people a different perspective of how things work," she said.

"They start to see themselves as part of the solution rather than voicing what the problem is," Loverin added. "A project like this, everybody expects the city to do things. But in a small community, there's not enough city to do everything that needs to be done. That's where volunteer groups like this one come into play — to get stuff done, to get it done as quickly as we possibly can, but also to be responsible with how the city's resources are being used. I think this really did a good job with that. It's been a good partnership with the city and a lot of fun along the way."

Casper called it a process of "getting to know and trust each other," not only between the volunteers and the city, but also the volunteers themselves.

Because of the project, "I was encouraged by some people to get a beautification group started," Casper said. "I decided to start with this first, and I see real potential. I think if people want to get involved, we should get to talking about it. We’ll get started slowly like we did with this and see how it moves forward. … This is people volunteering their time. It's a labor of love type of thing."

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