Carole Theisen, St. Joseph
I love the town of St. Joseph!
We moved here when my Dad got a job at St. Ben’s and I was in eighth grade. I could not believe how special I felt and how everyone was so kind to me and my family. I love small towns! I love that we know just about everyone. I love walking over at St. Ben’s where I worked and went to school. This town just has so much character. I love what the town did with the benches and flower beds and the cool street lights. The Wobegon trail just really adds to this feeling. Because there is so much pride in the town of St. Joseph, it is the reason I was so excited to start the St. Joseph Hanging Basket Project. My Husband Jim and I had often gone to Red Wing, Minn. and so loved the hanging baskets on all the streets. Every year we would go down there to get the directions to put the baskets together for our yard. The people in Red Wing were fantastic to work with. Every year they give all the customers either the choice of buying a basket or gave us the directions on how they did theirs for that year.
I had asked them if any of the other towns around there did this. I had seen many towns do flowers but none were as pretty as Red Wing. They did say many towns had tried it but were not successful for some reason or another. This is when I got the idea to try to do it in St. Joseph. Red Wing’s City, and Sargent’s Nursery Inc. were so supportive and gave us a lot of info to start our first year. We had a few issues so when we decided to add more the second year we actually made an appointment with the Nursery and the City of Red Wing. They reminded me of St. Joseph people. They worked with us more than four hours, went through all the different steps they take and let us take pictures of there equipment to duplicate here in St. Joseph. Wow, they did not have to do that.
Our second year went better then the first and now we think we have it figured out for our third year to be even better. My dream and our goal is for them to bloom from May until the end of September and to have each light post downtown be covered.
We could not have done this without so many people! Each year we do a “Thank You” in this paper for those who donated but that is just the tip of the iceberg. The City of St. Joseph especially the maintenance department has worked so hard to come up with watering devices and a way to get these watered almost every day. This project would not have taken place without the St. Joseph Action Group or the Chamber, EDA, the Y2K Lions and many more. What great support we have in this town! I cannot tell you how many people from the St. Cloud area came to one of our great businesses in St. Joseph and wanted to know where these flowers came from and how we planted them. We have been approached by the Lake George area who is also looking at this project.
I always ask the callers why they were in St. Joseph. Most of the time it was to visit our local businesses or to attend the Fourth of July parade. The best day was when a couple of callers said they came to see the flowers, then decided to stop at the St. Joseph Meat Market as long as they were here and then stopped for lunch at Bello’s!
I would love for this to be the reason people come to St. Joseph who have never been here before. We have such great small businesses in St. Joseph. We have so much to offer!
Lastly, I want to especially thank Margy Hughes. I cannot tell you how much she did to get this project going!
In May, we will go out and collect for this year’s 80 Baskets to complete the downtown project. The baskets are $150 per basket; a half-basket $75 and other (any amount). Many of these baskets are in memory of a loved one and will be published in the paper in September. Flyers will be out in April.
If interested, call Carol Theisen at 320-363-8496, 320-249-7676 or email me at cmtjat17@gmail.com You can also call Joyce Faber at 320-363-7682.
Baskets will be put up right before Memorial Day.
I think we will especially enjoy these flowers this year after this crazy winter!