Some of Us Got Totally Hammered and Nailed in Deep Ellum on Saturday

Photo by Andrea Grimes

A finished garden planter is born in Deep Ellum last Saturday.

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More than 30 folks came out to the Deep Ellum Community Day on Saturday, many of whom Deep Ellum Community Association president Randee Smith didn't know from Adam (Hats). Which, for Smith, is saying something: She spends many of her evenings out and about at neighborhood meetings and gatherings drumming up support from residents and businesses of the neighborhood. "I don't even know their first names!" she told me as volunteers spent the morning and early afternoon assembling garden planters that will, in the next couple weeks, be filled with dirt and seeds for veggies, flowers and herbs and placed outside neighborhood businesses.

It was a combined effort I'm proud to say I was part of as a resident -- despite my powerful lack of design skill, I was permitted to whip up some flyers to be distributed to a number of Deep Ellum apartment/loft buildings. Smith said a number of folks came based on the flyers alone, which is not to discount the powerful social networking skills of Kelly Clemons and Sean Fitzgerald, who really took the lead in getting time and space aligned for the planter assembly. But I hesitate to name-drop even as I do, because, really, it was just the next step of a movement that began late last year and will continue into fall as we fill the planters with dirt and seed.

Here's a slide show -- my first! Be gentle, y'all. My photo-taking skills are new and fragile, like a tiny flower sprouting in a planter in an upstart urban neighborhood.