Provo neighborhood builds welcoming entryway

PROVO (Daily Herald) -- Lakewood neighborhood is on the other side of the tracks -- not exactly the connotation residents want for where they live.

So Lakewood residents, led by neighborhood chairman Terry Herbert and 14-year-old almost-Eagle Scout Braden Taylor, designed a summer project that they hope will make people want to come to their neighborhood. Now, people traveling west on 920 South under the freeway, the main entrance into the southwest Provo neighborhood, will be greeted by a "Welcome to Lakeview neighborhood" on a nice rock instead of the weed patch that formerly occupied that street corner.

"I didn't want it to be just for certain groups," Braden said.

He, along with hours of help from Herbert, his mother, Cheryl Taylor, and other neighborhoods, designed the project, wrote it up and presented it to the city's neighborhood board, asking for money to match what the neighborhood had raised. They got approval on Aug. 14 and started yanking weeds and pouring concrete.

The city's grant program offers matching dollars, so neighborhoods have to raise money as well as donate several hours of time on the project. Cheryl Taylor said this project required more than 300 hours, and neighbors chipped in between $1,200 and $1,500 to match the grant.

"Which is a lot for this part of town," she said.

The budget, which will run about $5,000, covers a retaining wall, landscaping for two small street corners and a big rock that welcomes people to the Lakewood neighborhood. Herbert is excited about the improvements to the entryway, which is at 920 S. 680 West.

Original Article