By Sarah Elizabeth Villicana, The Porterville Recorder

Main Street should look better suited for this year’s Porterville Iris Festival, with the city’s official flower blooming along city sidewalks.

Members of the Porterville Garden Club and Porterville Firefighter’s Association are collaborating to bring irises to downtown in time for the annual festival that celebrates the city flower.

On Friday firefighters placed fresh dirt in all the planter beds along Main Street and Garden Club members will follow by planting iris rhizomes in the fresh dirt.

They received help from some young community volunteers. Eric Dodd, 6, and his brother A.J. Dodd, 9, didn’t make it to class on Friday morning, but they did learn a lesson of community service from their dad.

Porterville Fire Captain Jeff Dodd said his boys were helping him fill the planters on Main Street with fresh dirt in preparation for the irises. His youngest son knows the work they are doing now will later benefit the downtown area.

“We’re here to make our town pretty,” Eric Dodd said.

About 10 local firefighters were shoveling dirt and pushing wheelbarrows down the sidewalk along Main Street.

David Lapere, vice president of the Porterville Firefighter’s Association, said his organization was seeking a community improvement project to adopt when the city council paired it with the Porterville Garden Club.

“The garden club is mostly women and many are older,” Lapere said. “We’re providing the muscle to get the work done.”

Lapere said members of the garden club believed it would take a minimum of four hours to complete Friday’s project.

“We are very organized and firefighters are naturally hard workers,” Lapere said. “With the guys I have out here this should take no more than two hours.”

There is one thing Lapere said everyone in the community can do to help keep Main Street beautiful – please don’t trample the flowers.

“During parades, especially, people come and walk all over the planter beds,” Lapere said. “Hopefully when they see the irises there they will walk around the flowers instead of over them.”

With any luck, residents will see some the flowers in bloom during the city’s 9th Annual Iris Festival.

The Porterville Chamber of Commerce is still seeking food and craft vendors to participate. This one day event is scheduled for April 28 in beautiful, historic downtown Porterville.

This year festival organizers anticipate 20,000 people to attend. The Iris Festival also includes a children’s activity area, classic car exhibition, business row, and community corner and free stage entertainment. For more information on the Iris Festival or for an application, call the Porterville Chamber of Commerce at 784-7502.

source : www.portervillerecorder.com