Flowerful planters celebrate nation’s Semiquincentennial
by Robert Lynch; July 2, 2026
Credit Town Clerk Mary Cornell for the inspiration. Credit local kids for the artwork. And credit the entire Town of Enfield for welcoming a new, tasteful addition to our central hamlet’s main thoroughfare just in time to celebrate America’s 250th anniversary.
On May 22, youths drawn from the Enfield Community Council (ECC) and elsewhere gathered outside the bays of the largely-unused former Enfield Highway Garage, next to the Town Clerk’s office. They were there to paint, and paint they did.
“Participants used a mix of stencils and freehand designs to create unique artwork while enjoying snacks, conversation, and excitement about the upcoming summer season,” ECC Program Manager Spencer Van Epps wrote in the agency’s bimonthly Rural Youth Services Report.
It was “definitely a learning opportunity for kids that haven’t ever painted anything,” Van Epps later told the ECC Board of Directors June 25. “Kids had a lot of fun,” the program manager assured the board.
Then quietly, without fanfare, Clerk Cornell, helped by Town and volunteer staff, placed the eleven painted planters on Town property and under light poles bordering Enfield Main Road throughout Enfield Center. Flowering plants were purchased from Eddydale Farms. The planters will remain in place throughout the growing season, well beyond the nation’s anniversary that they patriotically celebrate.
Clerk Cornell says funding came through a $3,000 Beautification Grant funneled through Cooperative Extension. The grant money required a 50/50 local match. Some of the Town’s support came through in-kind services.
The Enfield Town Board last fall set aside $1,500 in its 2026 Budget for beautification efforts. Clerk Cornell traditionally administers those funds.
“Little things count,” Cornell said when interviewed about the project June 30. The planters demonstrate that “Enfield cares about the community,” she said.
As for the planters themselves, they came from purchased kits. The Town Clerk and her family assembled the pieces and then let kids decorate them. Each kit cost about $59, cheaper than you could buy materials to build them from scratch, she reported.
“It brought the community together and kids together,” Cornell commented.
And community spirit extends to maintenance. Plants require water. The clerk first thought she’d need to nurture the plantings herself. But instead, she reported that many neighbors whose homes stand near the planters have willingly taken on the often daily watering task.
“People are loving them,” Cornell stated about the wooden raised beds.
“It’s a work in progress,” the Town Clerk said of the ongoing Enfield beautification initiative.
Cornell hopes to buy several more planter boxes and specifically place them within the evolving municipal parkland across from the Town Hall, commonly known as Enfield SkateGarden.
Under terms of the Cooperative Extension grant, the planter boxes must be placed on Town of Enfield property. Boxes now stand outside the Clerk’s Office and at the rear entrance of the Enfield Courthouse. They’re also on each side of the painted snowplow sign at the roadside entrance to the Highway Department driveway.
Because Enfield Center’s street lights are considered public property, boxes are also placed there.
Cornell hopes the planters will last well beyond America’s Semiquincentennial. “We’d hope to get three or four years out of them,” the Clerk predicted.
And there’s something more; a beautification attribute you’ll notice only after dark. Colored bulbs have been purchased for the post-mounted Enfield Center street lights. They’ll be red, white, and blue around July 4, and then still different colors near Halloween and again at Christmas.
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