Library District Gateway Garden

Program Area: ReClaim

Topic: Vacant Land

Year: 2015, Current

Neighborhood: McKeesport

Parent Project: ReClaim McKeesport

News/Press Coverage

McKeesport to get overhaul via 9 beautification projects

Tribune Review | April 22, 2015

Shari is building a gateway garden on a former abandoned property near the entrance of the Library District in McKeesport. The space will be designed to encourage neighborly connections and relationships between residents. There will be a vast array of grasses and plants to enhance the entrance of the historic Library District.

The garden will also include a Little Free Library to encourage community members, young and old, to share valuable and fun literature!

“With this projects I hope to connect my neighbors to one another – to build community.”
— Shari Holland, ReClaim McKeesport Ambassador

1301-1343 Coursin Street, McKeesport, PA 15132, USA

Shari’s site will be a gateway to McKeesport’s ‘Cultural and Educational District’. She wants to help beautify the area, and involve as many community organizations as possible.

Her site will welcome visitors to her neighborhood and be a beautiful place for the residents.

If you drove by Shari's site in April, it might have looked like this, as they were capping the sewer lines to the property!

One of the first volunteer days

A young volunteer shows off a worm

Shari welcoming volunteers to her site

Bricks line the entrance to Shari's site

Tackling a mulch pile

Shari reusing file folders as weed barrier on her site.

Volunteers mulching the path

Volunteers planting

Laying out plants for the front bed

Shari's thriving plants