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Volunteer John Langley waters some of the hanging flower baskets on Washington Avenue recently near the Jack-in-the-Box restaurant in Alton. Godfrey couple Dale and Carol Neudecker founded the 15-year-old Upper Alton beautification project, which is maintained by dozens of volunteers. The Upper Alton Association takes care of the 50-gallon golf cart’s maintenance.
lessPhoto: John Badman|The TelegraphVolunteer John Langley waters some of the hanging flower baskets on Washington Avenue recently near the Jack-in-the-Box restaurant in Alton. Godfrey couple Dale and Carol Neudecker founded the 15-year-old Upper
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Volunteer John Langley waters some of the hanging flower baskets on Washington Avenue recently near the Jack-in-the-Box restaurant in Alton. Godfrey couple Dale and Carol Neudecker founded the 15-year-old Upper Alton beautification project, which is maintained by dozens of volunteers. The Upper Alton Association takes care of the 50-gallon golf cart’s maintenance.
lessVolunteer John Langley waters some of the hanging flower baskets on Washington Avenue recently near the Jack-in-the-Box restaurant in Alton. Godfrey couple Dale and Carol Neudecker founded the 15-year-old Upper
... moreALTON — For the last 15 years, the community has admired the more than 100 seasonal flower baskets hanging from the city’s historic Pie Town district’s street lights, thanks to volunteers who have faithfully watered and cared for the plants.
In an effort that started with a Godfrey couple’s summer vacation, more than two dozen volunteers each dedicate one week of their time to the ongoing Upper Alton beautification project. Each year, they start hanging the baskets the week leading up to Memorial Day and care for the flowers into October.
“We were on vacation and we just happened to drive through this little town on our way to where we were going, and we saw these beautiful street lights with the hanging baskets,” said Dale Neudecker, of Godfrey, about the small town of Delavan, Wisconsin.
“We just pulled over and I got out our camera and took several pictures of the baskets.”
After returning from their trip, Neudecker and his wife, Carol, presented the photos to the city, suggesting something similar. Approximately eight years later, new streetlights matching those in the couple’s photos were installed along Washington and College avenues in Upper Alton, also known as Pie Town.
“The city set up a streetscape committee, and several years later they finally got the funding to do it,” recalled Dale Neudecker, who also founded Bucket Brigade in 1988 and remains an advisor. “That was fifteen years ago that we hung the first flowers there.”
Single-handedly recruiting, organizing and scheduling all of the beautification project’s volunteers each year, Neudecker believes in the importance of taking pride in one’s community and making a good impression for visitors.
“My original idea was that we need to make every entrance and exit from Alton beautiful, so that the first and last impression is good,” he said. “I think that actually shows that the community is vibrant and growing.”
Watering the flowers twice a day and fertilizing them once a week, the 25 volunteers are just as dedicated.
“You couldn’t pay people to work as hard as the volunteers work,” Neudecker said.
“We have people from all over the area who are willing to take the time it takes,” he noted. “It’s an hour and a half each time they water them, so three hours a day, and most of them do seven days in a row. They get the job done and the flowers look beautiful.”
Taking the first couple of weeks “to make sure they’re off to a good start,” Neudecker also fills in when needed volunteers can’t work their hours. Volunteer Robert Kramer has been a caretaker for a number of years, but can’t remember exactly how many.
“I’ve kind of lost track,” he said. “It seems like forever. I think my wife saw an article in the Telegraph, or heard something from local friends, that a group was involved in watering the hanging baskets. She thought it would be nice, so we got involved.”
Kramer initially started watering the flowers with his wife, Cheryl, when they lived off of Milton Road and raised four children in Alton.
“Watering the flowers is really quite rewarding,” he said. “Dale, by developing this thing, brought something that’s prideful to people to help and volunteer. You might be watering the flowers and all of a sudden somebody comes by on the street, stops their car and asks you a question or says, ‘They’re sure beautiful.’
“It gets a little hot, but for a week, one can do something that’s helpful to the community. And this year, they’re the prettiest they’ve ever been.”
Neudecker shared a similar experience.
“We constantly have people walking by or pulling over to the curb asking how we get such beautiful flowers,” he said. “It’s because of our wonderful volunteers who are there day after day. We put them out the week before Memorial Day, and we usually get them into October before we have to take them down.”
The flowers, which come from Green Earth Greenhouses in Godfrey and are paid for by the city of Alton, are watered by one or two volunteers at a time, using a golf cart with a 50-gallon tank. The Upper Alton Association, a nonprofit organization that is continually working to promote and improve the Upper Alton community, takes care of the golf cart’s maintenance.
“Dale just told us what to do and showed us the route,” Kramer said. “My wife and I would do the watering together, and then I found I could almost do it as fast by myself. So that’s kind of how we started. The warmer it is outside, the more water the plants need.”
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