HOT SPRINGS – While it’s the concrete that creates the foundation of Hot Springs’ new downtown roadway, it’s the beautifully colored vegetation and landscaping located at each street corner which engrains it altogether into the community.
Since the beginning of the Hwy. 385 reconstruction project, Keep Hot Springs Beautiful (KHSB) has been working side-by-side with the South Dakota Department of Transportation and the City of Hot Springs to help ensure the downtown street corners would have the ability to be decorated appropriately.
Formerly known as “pods” and managed by KHSB’s “Pod Squad,” the newly designed and decorated “bump-outs” are part of KHSB’s new “Bumpout Brigade” and overseen by co-leads Caitlyn Mosset and Christine Fraser, who also serve as Secretary and Treasurer respectively of the organization.
According to KHSB President Shelly Hagans-Brown, there are currently 20 finished bump-outs, with more to be replanted once they are released postconstruction.
Hagans-Brown said, in 2024 alone, there has been more than 900 volunteer hours spent on replanting/ maintaining the bump-outs. Additionally, more than 60 people have put in volunteer hours for replanting starting in Oct 2022 to present.
“We are grateful to the businesses that allow volunteers to use their exterior spigots to water,” she said. Those businesses include: Kitchen Ink, Many Moons Trading, Hustead Law Office, Hot Springs Ministerial Association Food Pantry, Bering Apartments, Ace Hardware, Vision Source, Fall River Auto, Glass Pro, Springs Hometown Healthcare, Hot Springs 7th Day Adventist, Lynn’s Dakotamart Gas.
Hagans-Brown added that several bump outs do not have easy access to water and volunteers haul water multiple times a week to keep plants healthy, but thankfully, this number is lower than it used to be.
In addition to the work performed by the KHSB volunteers, city employees have also helped pick out and place boulders that were In addition to the bump outs, KHSB is also committed to planting 20 trees along with some other additional vegetation in what the city is calling “Welcome Island,” near the South 6th Street dip bridge. This is the green area created by the SDDOT’s reconstruction of the intersection near Lynn’s Dakotamart.
KHSB’s Mosset was at last week’s Sept. 3 city meeting where the council approved $7,245 to reimburse KHSB for the recently installed sprinkler system at the Welcome Island. The decision to reimburse the cost of the sprinkler system was due to it being part of the city’s infrastructure and something the city had agreed to cover two years ago when the decision was made to bring water and electricity to the site.
Mosset said they hope to plant the 20 trees later this month. When asked about the large clock salvaged from the Wesch-Oak building that the city plans to install at Welcome Island, Mosset said KHSB has no particular plans as to an exact location for the clock but would accommodate for it wherever the city decides they’d like to place it.
At the Sept. 3 council meeting, council members were provided a data sheet from KHSB which described the dollar value of KHSB’s partnership with the City for the bumpout project to have an estimated value of $49,350 to include materials and labor from 2022-2025.
This estimated value includes an anticipated 1,500 volunteer hours in the aforementioned four-year period equating to $16,800 plus over 1,000 plants in the bumpouts with a value of $16,000. The 20 trees planned for the Welcome Island will cost KHSB about $10,000 as well. Top soil, soil amendments and the mulch budget for everything is an additional $4,835, along with $750 for reseeding and weed removal. KHSB is also placing a bench in front of the Pioneer Building for $980 plus tax and freight.
The entire city council commended Mosset and KHSB for all of their hard work.