Professional volunteer Advisors from the America in Bloom national awards program will visit Tavares on April 25th-26th. This is Tavares’s fourth year as an America in Bloom participant, and it is one of the many proud and passionate communities across America working on local revitalization programs. Participants experience better cooperation among municipal, commercial, and residential sectors because everyone works toward a common goal.
In addition to receiving a detailed written evaluation from the Advisors citing strengths and opportunities for improvement, participants receive a special mention for what the judges deem to be an extraordinary project or program. Additional awards that can be earned includes:
- Population category winner
- Outstanding achievement award – the “best of the best” over all participants in each of the evaluated criteria
- Special awards
- Community Champion
- YouTube Video
Advisors will be evaluating the community’s efforts in the areas of community vitality, flowers, landscaped areas, urban forestry, environmental efforts, celebrating heritage, and overall impression.
The Advisor team members are Rod Barnes and Teresa Woodard.
Rod Barnes currently serves as the Town Administrator for Edmonston, Maryland. Edmonston is a small community in the Washington DC metro region. He has a Master of Public Administration from Kansas State University. He has served as purchasing agent, finance director, city clerk and as a City Manager over his 35 years of experience in local government. While serving in local government roles, he has developed historic preservation projects and has extensive experience working on trail development and expanding park greenspace in the communities he has served. In the two years he has been at Edmonston, he has focused on the town’s environmental efforts. He has expertise in the development of green streets that include the components of rain gardens, bike lanes, using recycled materials for furniture and trash receptacles and permeable paving. Other sustainable environment projects he has been involved with include the use of solar energy for heating Town Hall, the use of electric cars for Code Enforcement and Public Works. Rod was instrumental in the development of a community garden and 3 community fruit tree orchards in Edmonston.
Teresa Woodard writes and produces garden and lifestyle stories for regional and national magazines. After graduating from Indiana University with a bachelor’s degree in journalism, she worked seven years for a Columbus, Ohio public relations firm marketing the city’s economic development and promoting its restaurant and hotel chains’ community involvement. Teresa pursued a new career path in 2007 when she started a freelance writing business. In 2016, her work won a Gold Award in Magazine Writing by the GWA: The Association of Garden Communicators. Teresa blogs with two other garden writers and recently published a book with them. She is a Master Gardener Volunteer for The Ohio State University Extension, editor of the Master Gardener Training Manual and winner of the 2015 Ohio Outstanding Master Gardener Award. Teresa gardens on two acres at her home in a conservation community west of Columbus. Here, she nurtures prairie strips, an edibles garden and perennial beds.
To date, more than 275 communities from 43 states have participated in the program and more than 22 million people have been touched by it. Awards will be announced September 29-October 1, 2022 at AIB’s National Symposium & Awards Celebration in St. Louis, Missouri.
