Every year, volunteers in Brookfield gather one spring Saturday early in the morning to come together and beautify the town, cleaning up trash, sowing new plants and keeping things, as the name suggests, nice.
“Project NICE is a cleanup day for the whole community. It started over 30 years ago by commissioners looking to have more residents involved in a cleaner community,” Village Trustee Katie Kaluzny told the Landmark. “‘Neighbors Involved in a Clean Environment’ is what NICE stands for. It’s evolved over the years. Different sites need more maintenance than others.”
Kaluzny, who is the village board’s liaison to Brookfield’s beautification commission, which hosts the annual effort, said the exact activities depend on the time of year Project NICE is held and the conditions day-of.
She said this year’s event, held Saturday, May 16, was the second time Brookfield had partnered with members of the Salt Creek Watershed Network. Eight or nine volunteers cleaned up the portions of Salt Creek that run through town, she said.
“They met at Village Hall, and we used one of the village buses to help them go up to the 26th Street Woods launch point from LaGrange Park, so when they got back, their car would be at Village Hall,” she said.
Kaluzny gave flowers to one Brookfield resident for making the partnership happen.
“Rebecca Siala is a member of the Salt Creek Watershed Network, and she’s been attending all of the commission meetings as a member of the public,” she said. “She’s really wanted to get this section of the creek having a regular cleanup day. Other areas of the creek have that going, so she’s been a great advocate to get this happening in Brookfield.”
In addition to three large tires, orange traffic cones and an old rocking chair, Kaluzny said the coolest find in the Creek was a “full deer skull with antlers.”
Noah Rife, a management analyst with the village, said work typically begins in the fall on the village’s side of things to bring Project NICE to life.
“We work with departments to figure out what are some priority areas, whether it’s a park, whether it’s certain green space,” he said. “It’s multiple months [of work]. We work with the commission, figuring out how many sign-ups, and they reach out to their partners and different organizations.”
Rife said about 60 people came out in total this year, with most of them mulching and weeding. He said the volunteers put emphasis to improve the Brookfield gateway sign at the intersection of 31st Street, Grand Boulevard and Kemman Avenue, where the village borders LaGrange Park.
Kaluzny said she was part of the group working near the sign.
“It’s a site that the beautification commission has had their eye on for a couple of years. It’s a really nice sight and a greeter into Brookfield, but it’s kind of an underutilized space,” she said. “We ordered new plants. We ordered two trees, a Douglas fir and a redbud. We were able to work with some great students from S.E. Gross, students from Congress Park, folks from the community, from the board. We all took out some of the older, scraggly stuff and put in some nice, new plants at that corner.”
Rife and Kaluzny agreed it was a fun day where people were excited to get their hands dirty.
“It gives a sense of community. You want to make your front yard, which is the village itself, look as nice as possible,” Rife said. “You’re always able to find something new to beautify and make the village of Brookfield look even better than it already does.”
“People were really excited to be getting to plant things. I think everyone likes to see something that they’ve done and be able to go past it, so they were excited to take out some of the older stuff,” she said. “It’s an important event for Brookfield because it brings the community together to take care of our spaces. Obviously, we have an amazing public works department that takes care of things all year long, but I think it helps us feel more invested in different pieces of our community.”
