Trustmark Art Park in Laurel will be getting a facelift courtesy of a Hometown grant from telecommunications giant T-Mobile.
The company unveiled its latest 25 recipients of the grant aimed at helping fund local projects that “bring new life to their communities.” Laurel, an oasis nestled in Mississippi’s Pine Belt, was one of the beneficiaries of this funding.
Renovations at Trustmark Art Park will include the addition of durable play equipment, fencing, and drought protection measures for the park’s historic live oak trees, enhancing safety and environmental sustainability for the community.
“Our project entails adding some irrigation to help those trees through the coming months because I’m sure we’re going to have some dry days,” Caroline Burks with Laurel Main Street said on Good Things with Rebecca Turner.
“We’ll add some fencing to make [the park] a little safer because right now, the park has an opening that leads directly to the street. As a parent, that makes me nervous. We’ll also add a small play structure, so it will give the kiddos something to focus on besides climbing on those historic trees. It’s an exciting upgrade to our park to make it a little safer, but also provide longer-term sustainability for the only green space in our downtown.”
Burks said area residents and leaders grew deeply concerned about the trees’ viability in recent years. A culmination of droughts, the park’s surface being comprised of turf rather than grass, among other factors, has put the oak trees’ sustainability in peril. After consulting with arborists and other experts, it was apparent that near-immediate action was needed.
The irrigation project, made available by the T-Mobile grant, will be the city’s fourth-quarter Hail Mary to not only keep the trees alive temporarily but also rejuvenate them for the long run.
“Those trees have been very stressed for a while,” Burks said. “With this irrigation that we’re going to be able to put in, it will put water underneath that turf, so the trees will be able to get what they need. Hopefully, we will have them for years and years to come.”
T-Mobile teams up with Main Street America — a nonprofit organization that works to advance shared prosperity, create resilient economies, and improve quality of life through place-based economic development and community preservation — to bring Hometown grants to fruition.
“Small towns are continually shaping the conversation around what community-driven change looks like, and the T-Mobile Hometown Grants program is helping amplify their impact,” Main Street America President and CEO Erin Barnes said. “This kind of investment empowers local leaders to turn their long-held visions into tangible, lasting change.”
The latest list of Hometown grant recipients can be found here.
