TR students beautify downtown

By Shelly Williams/managing editor

TR students Miguel Olampo, Katrina Garcia and Elaine Gonzalez participate in Project Daffodil Nov. 19, planting bulbs on the west bank of the Trinity River in downtown Fort Worth.  Photo by Casey Holder/The Collegian
TR students Miguel Olampo, Katrina Garcia and Elaine Gonzalez participate in Project Daffodil Nov. 19, planting bulbs on the west bank of the Trinity River in downtown Fort Worth. Photo by Casey Holder/The Collegian

Shovels hit the dirt as Trinity River students and faculty dug holes Nov. 19.

As a way to help beautify the Trinity River and as part of Project Daffodil, they planted native Texas daffodil bulbs on the west bank of the river and north of the Seventh Street Bridge in Fort Worth.

The campus worked with Steams and Valleys, Inc., a non-profit organization that plans and coordinates the beautification and development of the Trinity River and its tributaries in Fort Worth and Tarrant County, to plant 1,800 flowers for the spring season. The organization donated the daffodil bulbs to the college.

Participants served in teams of 15 for one-hour shifts to plant the bulbs during the four-hour event.

“We were excited about it,” said TR student development coordinator Laura Escamilla. “We were actually the first people to participate in it.”

She said the best part of the project comes next semester.

“What’s great is there will be a sign [of the work done] there in the spring when they bloom and when people see those yellow daffodils that were planted by the TCC Trinity River Campus,” she said. “The bulbs are native wild Texas daffodils, so there really is no maintenance required. Once they’re planted, we don’t have to keep going back to it. They’ll just keep coming back year after year.”

Participants were provided with snacks, small shovels and gloves but were also told to bring their own gardening tools if they had them. TR student Jairo Huaman, part of the TR All-Stars program, said he thought the event was good to participate in outside of campus.

“I think it was a success because we had a pretty good turnout and all the bulbs got planted,” he said. “Now we just wait until spring to see the finished product. My favorite part was digging the holes and the snacks, and my least favorite part was the ant bites.”

TR student Kirk Whitney said he thought Project Daffodil was a great way to help improve the community.

“The event was fun and productive,” he said. “We’ll see how good we did when the flowers grow. It was a great opportunity to grow and connect with other people.”

Escamilla said that TR Campus wants to plant more daffodils on a different part of the river next year.