COVINGTON, Ky. - About five dozen volunteers flocked to Randolph Park on Saturday morning, and they left behind fresh paint and an expanded “pollinator garden” designed to attract butterflies, bees, and hummingbirds.

 

The work was just one of almost three dozen sites to get attention as part of Covington’s celebration of the Great American Cleanup, a large annual volunteer event organized by Keep Covington Beautiful, the City, and The Center for Great Neighborhoods.

 

The work at Randolph included fresh painting of handrails and metal slats on the building; the beginning of a mural on the pool house that will feature an abstract depiction of children swimming; and the addition of bushes, flowers, and mulch in a large planted area at the corner of Eighth and Greenup streets.

 

“This was an amazing group of people who worked very hard,” said Rosie Santos, the City’s Parks & Recreation manager.

 

The pollinator garden is part of the Mayors’ Monarch Pledge, a national initiative kicked off in 2017 to save the monarch butterfly by creating butterfly-friendly habitat, Santos said. Education signage for the garden will be purchased with a grant from the Kentucky Waterways Alliance, and the bushes and plants were funded by the Covington Urban Forestry Board, she said.

 

Similar projects will occur later at Peaselburg Park and Hands Pike Park.

 

Many of the volunteers at the Randolph site came from Delta Air Lines and the nearby Redden Gardens, a community garden, she said.

 

Cleanup sites across the City included parks, medians, corner lots, and roadsides, where hundreds of volunteers picked up litter and leaves, planted flowers and shrubs, trimmed bushes and trees, and fixed signs.

 

It’s considered the biggest volunteer event of the year in Covington.

 

 

 

 

 

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