There are plenty of reasons for city officials to toutBrookhaven as a great place to live, but one of them is the factthat ongoing community efforts like Brookhaven Beautiful keeppublic areas beautiful and colorful.

“The mission is exactly what it says,” said Brookhaven Beautifulmember Shirley Estes. “It’s been around since the late 50s and thecommunity members have always participated to beautifyBrookhaven.”

Currently the group is updating the flowers in several publicflower beds downtown, insuring that the city has a fresh new lookgoing into the summer.

“We just maintain the beds, and there are several all overtown,” said Jimminette Phillips, another member of BrookhavenBeautiful. “But the high profile ones are downtown, and we updatethem year-round.”

But maintaining the downtown flower beds isn’t the only thingthe group does to keep Brookhaven looking cheerful and floral. Theyhave several projects under way, as well as working with other areagroups for an overall city-wide effect.

One such project is the roses in the Railroad Park. They wereput out by the Chamber of Commerce ambassadors in conjunction withBrookhaven Beautiful.

Phillips said the partnerships are crucial to the beautificationof the city.

“The city has some public spaces that Brookhaven Beautiful andthe Chamber of Commerce partnership to take care of,” she said.”It’s a community effort, not just one organization. It’s a lot ofpeople coming together.”

It’s all a part of a grand plan to keep the city looking freshand pretty, not only because it’s aesthetically pleasing to itsresidents. Estes said there’s plenty to show that beautifying thecity is important to its growth as well.

“Actually in studies I’ve read, there’s a direct impact onpeople wanting to live a community that’s well-kept andbeautified,” she said. “Beautification definitely influencesbusiness prospects.”

Phillips said flower beds downtown, as well as growth on areasof Brookway Boulevard and other places, maintained all year. Thecompany that handles the work has to meet quite a few criteria.

“This year our contract is with the Growin’ Green. Each seasonthey change out flowers,” she said. “This year we had extradonations, so we made some improvements to some of the beds.”

Estes said maintaining the beds through every season is thegroup’s biggest project.

“We also participate by subsidizing annual color that goes inthe beds,” she said. “The big project is downtown, putting in theannual color.”

And Brookhaven Beautiful has been working hand in hand with manyof the other current projects going on to upgrade the look of thecity since the 1960s, said Estes, citing such projects as helpinguse a forestry grant to plant trees along the boulevard. But it’sthe entire city effort that makes their projects successful.

“Lots of businesses contribute with memorials and honorariums,”said Estes. “Brookhaven Beautiful supports the other communityactivities, too. We’ve been involved in helping with the plantingin conjunction with the new signage and lighting that is under wayalso.”