Flow-Bor Day has a great response from Rexburg residents

REXBURG, Idaho (KIFI) - Wednesday afternoon blew in a large group of volunteers who helped the city to plant flowers along Main Street and in front of City Hall in downtown Rexburg. The volunteers who came worked together in their individual families to get the planting done.

Rexburg Mayor Jerry Merrill says the event was a late celebration of last April's Arbor Day.

"Several years ago, we decided we wanted to dress our main street and some of our other streets up a little bit with a lot of flowers, a lot of color, and make it look nice and inviting," Mayor Merrill said. "And we typically don't celebrate Arbor Day when it happens the official day in April, because it's usually kind of cold a little bit still. And so we decided to combine. It's a service project of planting the flowers on our streets, along with an Arbor Day celebration."

He says they found a way to make it unique and fun fro all involved.

"So we named it Flow-bor Day. And it's a funny word, but it fits the bill because we have lots of volunteers that came out to help plant the flowers," he said. "We probably get close to 70 or 80 people out here that that came with their families to help us plant and dress it up."

He says families share with them all the time the sense of pride they feel in the flower bed throughout the rest of the year.

"It's always kind of fun because the families usually a lot of times they'll walk, drive, walk by or drive by the plant or bed and they'll say, oh, we planted that one and look how good it's doing. And they like to watch it grow. And I even tell them if they want to stop by and pull weeds in it once in a while, we won't stop them," he said.

One of the volunteers for the event, Emalee Robinson, says coming out to the event, "It's windy, for sure, but it's a lot of fun. Yeah, it's a good learning experience."

Robinson says she came with her 4-H group as a service project she says it gives them a sense of pride knowing how they helped decorate Main Street.

"You can say which ones you plan, show it to your friends and be like, we planted that with our 4-H group."

Another Volunteer Dalton Michelson says he feels as a college student its important to participate in community activities. As a way to bridge the gap between students and city residents.

"This is a community that we share, and I think it's super important that we show that we're invested in helping to make this community a good place to live. Helping to make it, you know, beautiful despite the wind," Michelson said.

He says despite his lack of a green thumb, "It is a lot of fun to be out here...it's just a sign that the cold weather is gone and that spring is back."

The event was from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. Wednesday evening though most of the flowerbeds were planted by 5 p.m.