Hello everyone and Happy February! It’s so great to be writing again after missing a few weeks here on the blog.

I’m very excited to share a really neat project with you today. The Renaissance Man and I love to go for walks, and on a sunny day in late January we went on a walk around town. The views always take my breath away, we live in such a beautiful place! I seriously have to pinch myself almost daily.

I had read about the Viewmont Greenway Park in The Grapevine, the Dundee quarterly newsletter, and so we decided to go explore the progress that was made this past summer. I’m sad that we were so busy making our own progress in our backyard, that we weren’t aware this project was happening right in our own community. Thankfully we’ll be able to get involved in Phase 2 of the project come Spring of 2016!

Viewmont Greenway is located on the northern boundary of Dundee between Laurel Street and Ione Street adjacent to the vineyard and is approximately 1,600 feet long and 50 feet wide. The City of Dundee owns this land and was able to secure a $75,000 grant from Oregon State Parks to start transforming the existing right-of-way into a phenomenal community space.

The work completed this summer included excavation and grading of the upper two thirds of the Greenway, and installation of the storm drain, construction of the gravel trail base, and landscaping. Even with all of the rain we’ve had this winter you can certainly see all of the hard work that was completed by students and volunteers.

You’ll have to forgive my pictures, the afternoon shadows had already started to set in when I starting “snapping away.”

What’s super neat about this project is that the Newberg High School horticulture program grew over 11,000 mostly native plants and shrubs that were planted as part of this project. Over 150 High School Students helped to assist 100 Dundee Elementary School Students during the planting project. You can see in the picture below just how many plants will one day grow up to be big and strong along the Greenway.

Mid-way down the trail, it splits into two separate paths and a foot bridge is going to be placed in this section so that walkers can cross over from one side of the path to the other.

In addition to all of the school age students, numerous other volunteers participated in the project including teachers, parents, Yamhill County Master Gardeners, the Dundee Garden Club, Catalyst High School, and Chehalem Park and Recreation District Master Gardener.

This is such an amazing project that builds a tremendous amount of community pride. I can just see students bringing their parents to the Greenway and showing them how they helped to grow and plant all of these plants. Even in “rough form” this is such a special place with so much potential!

I was excited to learn that Phase 2 of the project scheduled for Spring 2016 will include the following elements:

• Grading work on the lower section of the project closest to Ione Street
• Construction of the foot bridge over the drainage ditch connecting the “trail loop”
• Installation of a second storm water pipe and erosion control features
• Construction of an asphalt path and ADA parking spot using the stockpiled asphalt grindings recycled from the 2014 street paving projects
• Nature play elements
• Landscaping, a drinking fountain, and ADA accessible picnic table

Volunteers are a huge part of what made this first phase of the project such a success, and if you’re interested in getting involved please reach out to the City of Dundee Administrator Rob Daykin to get plugged into the project.

I’m already looking forward to 2016!