The Fall River community gathered for the fourth annual Hydrangea Day press conference, hosted by Sandy Dennis, Executive Director for Creative Arts Network. The event celebrated the ongoing hydrangea beautification program, an initiative originally conceived by David Lalima, known as the "Hydrangea Man." Speakers highlighted the program's success in planting 70 hydrangeas this week across various city locations, including the waterfront, Battleship Cove, Government Center, Old Second Street, South Main Street, and Bedford Street. The project aims to beautify the city and connect its downtown with the waterfront, with future plans to expand plantings to the I-195 interchange area and the new cultural district on Water Street in collaboration with Mass D.O.T. and Mass Coastal Rail. People Incorporated was recognized as a generous funder, co-sponsoring plants and involving individuals from their programs in planting and maintenance. Mayor Paul Coogan officially proclaimed June 25th as Hydrangea Day in Fall River, emphasizing the plant's connection to Azorean culture and the program's role in economic development and quality of life. The event also acknowledged the Rotary Club of Fall River, the Kiwanis Club, and Joe Marshall at J Marshall Associates for funding a golf cart with a water tank, which has significantly improved the efficiency of watering the hydrangeas.
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good afternoon and welcome to the fourth annual hydrangea day in full river my name is sandy dennis and i am the executive director for creative arts network and i'd also at this time would like to recognize a few people that will be doing some short speaking short speaking anyway david lalima david is the man behind the plant also david he works for the city of fall river he graciously waters all our plants for us
0:34every single day to keep them hydrated uh pete daly pete daly is with people incorporated they are the funders of all these beautiful hydrangea plants that you'll see around city hall south main street bedford street and here on old second street i want to thank mayor coogan for being here today and for all his support in making this project such a success we also have with us today city council
1:00andrew raposo andrew i want to thank you for coming we appreciate the support and we also have treasurer of creative arts network john b orson and charlie demny from dcm that i'm sure we'll be pestering constantly for help um i am stepping in for my husband who's president of creative arts network he's in court and got a delay so i'll be reading what he wrote so i apologize for that up front
1:29the idea of planting hydrangeas was originally david lalim is now known as the hydrangea man who came to us and pitched the idea as a cultural and beautification program the idea was to plant hydrangea which is very prevalent in portugal in and around various spots in the city in phase one we have been planting on the waterfront at battleship cove around government center old second
1:58street known as sullivan drive here where we're standing south main street to my left and bed street straight ahead this week we planted 70 hydrangeas to these areas with more to come okay this project has become as much a beautification effort as a connectivity one connecting the downtown in our waterfront in the next phase we're working with mass d.o.t and mass coastal rail and we'll be planting hydrangeas on
2:32that 195 interchange area and we'll be planting on the waterfront in the new cultural district on water street with mass coastal rail and we'll be putting a small place making area in that area if you want more information on the hydrangea program you want to volunteer you can go up on our website creativatsnetwork.org at this point what i'd like to do is introduce a couple of people just to say
2:59a few short words on the program david lalima again known as the hydrangea man this is very humbling experience to come from an idea to reality i really don't have much to say more than what sandy has said other than to say that it took many divergent people to make this thing happen sandy and david dennis were instrumental in connecting me with people incorporated uh carlos uh cesar from the
3:30um from the flint district arbonach nursery and of course we couldn't do this without two people one is malcolm condon who is the curator for the heritage experimental gardens and sandwich and he's really the hydrangea expert he's the one that mentored myself and sandy and david and lastly this wouldn't happen without david lavoy because he's watering all the time and he's enjoying
3:59it which is wonderful so i'll leave it at that at this point um i'd like i'd like to have um pete daly say a few words people incorporated have been extremely generous in funding the plants in this area they're also stepping up to the plate and they're going to be co-sponsors for the new area up on the 195 exchange so thanks andy um and it will be just a few words
4:30um we always have a good good turnout for the hydrangea day press conference and we only have good good weather too so the sun always comes out so that's good to see people incorporated has a lot of programs it has a lot of services but one thing we do really try to focus on as well is being a good community partner and this is a really great opportunity for people incorporated to be involved
4:53in the city uh but also to beautify the city and i'm lucky to be here representing people incorporated but to be honest it's the people in our programs who get their hands dirty literally and help plant the flowers help maintain the flowers so i just like to say thank you to sandy thank you to the three davids that are involved thank you to mal condon and the city for all its support thanks very much
5:21i see that dave dennis has arrived so i'll have him say a few words and he'll have the honor of introducing mayor coogan who's been a a true supporter of this program and i can't tell you how much we really do appreciate that so dave if you want to say a few years worth and excuse from there thank you sandy hey mayor what mayor welcome appreciate you being here today so uh this project's uh
5:48the hydrangea project has become a much of a beautification effort as a connectivity one in connecting the downtown and the waterfront in the next phase uh we are working with massdot to plant areas connecting 195 interchange to the waterfront and this summer and also with mass rail to create a small place making area in fall river in the water in the waterfront cultural district on water street
6:16if you want more information or want to volunteer you can go to our website at creatorwatchnetworth.org i'd also like to introduce a couple of people to say oh you already did that okay well moving right along um again as i said uh recently we've planted uh over 70 new hydrangea projects here in the in the plants here in the city uh you can notice them all around this area we're
6:46going to continue to plant not only here but down on the waterfront and of course we couldn't do any of this without the support of mayor coogan and his administration uh we'd like to thank the man we appreciate the support uh we think it's been a pretty good project for the city it's looking pretty good over here so uh with that i'd like to introduce uh mayor mike coogan mike's my brother
7:10what's up in the family that's all right sorry it was 11 of us so i didn't use myself i know i couldn't mess with one of the names anyway yeah that's true obviously this is a great project for the city of fall river just look around government center or right here on old second street and how um how much better it looks with these hydrangeas growing and i want to thank dave and dave and dave
7:32and of course sandy for putting this together it means a lot to the city and it really does make us look better so with that i'll read the proclamation whereas while hydrangeas aren't native to the azores historians believe the plant arrived in the u.s courtesy of immigrants from the azores in the mid 1900s rare whereas one of the distinct attributes of fora is its long rich history of azorian culture and our
7:59strong ties to portugal whereas a group of volunteers met to start the conversation of a hydrangea beautification program in the city of fall river and whereas much work has been done with state stakeholders businesses organizations neighborhood groups in addition to identifying locations for all these plantings whereas the goal to start is to plant in various areas throughout the waterfront
8:25and our downtown fall river eventually making it out into many of our neighborhoods whereas these areas are particularly important now that massachusetts cultural council voted to approve the commonwealth's 50th designated cultural district on the waterfront in fall river and whereas a clean attractive city is an asset for economic development improves the quality of life and enhances the experience for all of our
8:50visitors therefore i paul coogan mayor of fall river do hereby proclaim june 25th hydrangea day and again this is a real pleasure to do this and it's very important for our city and i want to thank everybody for coming out today thank you thank you i just have uh just have a group of people that we'd like to recognize uh one of the challenges of course with the project was getting
9:22water to them hydrangeas needs a lot a lot of water especially when they're first planted we were originally doing it by hand we figured out very quickly that wasn't very efficient and didn't work too well so we went out into the community we decided we had to get a vehicle uh in a water tank and we did that by purchasing uh our golf cart with a water tank on
9:40the back and in order to do that we went out to the community and i want to personally thank the rotary club of florida the kiwanis club and joe marshall at j marshall associates for helping us to fund the purchase of our golf cart to be able to water the hydrangeas so again i want to thank these individuals it's been a big help in the city of cost cooperates by making
10:04sure they get watered regularly by the use of the watercolor so thank you very much again we appreciate it and enjoy the hydrangeas in the city of florida thank you