Accomplishments

As the 2010 National Winners (population category of 50,001 – 150,000), the municipality was unable to compete in the mainstream of Communities in Bloom (CiB) this season. However, while entered as a Circle of Excellence participant, Chatham-Kent has continued to make its presence known as one of the elite contenders in the CiB circuit.

Living up to its National Champion and top ‘5 Bloom’ reputation, the municipality walked away with both the Home Hardware Beauti-Tone Heritage Conservation Award and the Landscape Ontario Green for Life – Park Award in 2011!

Over 100 competitors from across Canada, England, Scotland, Ireland, the United States and Japan all had the opportunity to apply for this prestigious Heritage Conservation Award. With a track record of excellent marks in the CiB Heritage Conservation section over the years and with an abundance of plans in place for the celebration of the War of 1812, Chatham-Kent put together an elaborate submission which demonstrated to the international judges that the municipality was worthy of being recognized world-wide for its outstanding achievements in Heritage Conservation!

Provincially, Chatham-Kent’s Kingston park project has earned the municipality one of its three brand new Landscape Ontario Green for Life Community Awards. The winners for this award were selected based on Community Spirit, Innovative Ideas and Environmental Sustainability in three possible categories; Communities, Schools or Parks. Built using a recycle/reuse theme wherever possible, the Kingston park revitalization project was recognized as the winner of the Landscape Ontario Green for Life - Park Award out of 25 Ontario applications.

Since our first non-competitive entry in 2002, it has been a steady climb toward the top for Chatham-Kent. Our first milestone was earning the highest attainable rating of ‘5 Blooms’ at the national level, a standing which we have continued to maintain since 2005 while improving upon each of our category scores.

We also have 2 additional prestigious International Criteria Awards under our belt.

In 2006 Chatham-Kent received the Scott’s Best Community of Gardeners Award which recognizes broad community involvement in gardening and horticulture projects as presented through exceptionally attractive and well maintained public and private gardens. We successfully portrayed to the judges that Chatham-Kent’s community gardening spirit was unmatched!

In 2009 the Municipality was awarded CiB’s overall Tidiness Award. Judges commented that “having tidy streets, sidewalk and buildings” in a Municipality of “over 616 000 acres is clearly a partnership effort involving the entire community!”

CK’s CiB successes substantiate us as a most desirable community to visit, invest in, or to relocate to, and it should also remind us of how lucky we are to already live here! Our ongoing CiB participation will give direction and inspiration to the Municipality’s continual pursuit of excellence and it will ensure that CK will flourish and blossom to its full potential.

Thanks to you there is no doubt that Chatham-Kent’s citizens are proud to be blooming where we’re planted and that we’ve embraced the national CiB slogan of “People, Plants and Pride…Growing Together” better than anyone in Canada!

For additional information please phone Chatham-Kent Communities in Bloom at 519.360.1998 or email CKpch@chatham-kent.ca .