Throwing some good shade on a historically neglected neighborhood in Bowling Green

It began with the smell. Joyce Tann, 75, had lived in her Bowling Green neighborhood of Delafield for close to a decade when she started conversations on her front porch with women from a local nonprofit trying to solve neighborhood problems:

The loud truck traffic rumbling past. Landlords who have let properties become “rundown.” And the “horrible” smells wafting over from the city’s wastewater treatment plant.?

Delafield, a historically blue collar and diverse neighborhood across the railroad tracks from downtown Bowling Green and Western Kentucky University, had been “neglected” in the past, Tann said, compared to other parts of the college town.?

“We’re working on things, you know, to make it a lot better.”

Tann now leads the Delafield Neighborhood Group which aims to build bonds among neighbors and tackle challenges facing the community; already, changes made at the treatment plant in response to the neighbors’ complaints and advocacy have provided a lot of relief from the odor. She’s worked alongside the nonprofit that had first approached her, Hotel Inc., which also launched a neighborhood grocery co-op in 2022 to fill the gap from a local grocery closing about a decade ago.?

Tann is excited about the next improvement coming to Delafield: hundreds of new trees.

Grants will promote greener communities

Through a nearly $150,000 grant, local nonprofits will be planting about 350 trees in Delafield and nearby areas including 30 trees at Parker-Bennett-Curry Elementary, a neighborhood school, starting as early as October.

It’s? part of federal funding coming to 16 communities across Kentucky to plant trees, launch education programs and promote greener communities. It’s part of a federal push to increase communities’ resilience to climate change impacts. Increased tree canopy, for example, provides cooling? and respite from extreme heat.?

“They are a protection, really, from the wind. They’re so colorful, and they’re nice — the shade that they give you,” Tann said. “We want people to be able to come over in this area and enjoy being over here.”?

Tann said along with sizable Black and Latino populations, Delafield is also home to immigrants. The International Center of Kentucky in Bowling Green has resettled families from all across the world. At Parker-Bennett-Curry Elementary, 68% of students are multilingual with 21 different home languages spoken, according to a local school district spokesperson.?

Melanie Lawrence, the executive director of Operation PRIDE, the nonprofit seeking to beautify Bowling Green that received the federal grant, said the trees will be planted in tandem with efforts to build sidewalks in the neighborhood and extend a greenway into the area.?

The trees could cleanse the air of odors from the treatment plant and nearby industry, provide shade and cooler temperatures along the streets and improve the wellbeing of local residents. University of Louisville research recently found the planting of thousands of trees and greenery across a Louisville neighborhood equated to “medicine,” improving inflammation biomarkers for local residents.?

“We thought this would be complementary because walking down a sidewalk with no trees gets pretty warm,” Lawrence said. “I have everybody on board. We’re ready to hit the ground running.”

Volunteers from another nonprofit Re-Tree BG, seeking to expand tree canopy in Bowling Green, will also be launching a tree education program at Parker-Bennett-Curry Elementary for students.?

The Bowling Green project is one of more than a dozen funded by grants through a partnership between the Kentucky Division of Forestry and the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Urban and Community Forestry Program. The funding, made possible through the? federal Inflation Reduction Act, is going towards tree planting efforts ranging from schools in Lexington to replacing trees lost to tornadoes in Western Kentucky.?

Succeeding lost giants in Ludlow

The Ohio River-bound city of Ludlow in Northern Kentucky is using almost $79,000 to conduct a survey of existing tree canopy, establish a tree ordinance regulating and protecting tree canopy, along with planting an additional 80 trees.?

Shane Hamant, the public works director for Ludlow, pointed to the riverfront city park where the tree canopy is “sparse.” “Just the beautification of the city itself, it reduces heat,” Hamant said, mentioning the city has lost “huge” oak and maple trees at the park in recent years.?

According to a release from state officials, the projects will plant 3,338 trees, create 34 tree wells or soil cells which protect trees especially in cityscapes, remove 50 declining or hazardous trees, create nine urban forestry or greenspace plans covering over 2,302 acres, launch hundreds of educational and community events and create or support 55 jobs.?

For Lawrence, the Operation PRIDE director in Bowling Green, the tree planting effort in the Delafield area is a part of a larger goal to give neighborhoods that have been ignored in the past proper attention and care.?

“The railroad tracks divided this town as it has many other towns,” Lawrence said. “We have a strong belief that everybody deserves beauty and respect.”?

Kentucky’s 2024 Urban and Community Forestry Assistance Grants