Help by the basketful

Volunteers and seasonal staff water more than 230 of Red Wing’s famous flower baskets throughout the town each morning all summer long.

The process takes about four hours per day for each of the two volunteers, who take over once high school- and college-age staff goes back to school.

But those same decorative baskets were disassembled in just a couple hours Tuesday morning as the city prepares for fall.

Volunteers, Kiwanis Club members and Sentence to Service crews took apart the baskets starting around 8 Tuesday morning after city staff removed them from their posts even earlier that day.

After all the time spent putting the baskets together and caring for them all summer, “they’re taken apart in a matter of minutes,” Donna Dummer said. With enough volunteers and crew members, it takes them only an hour or two to take apart the flower baskets.

The city reuses the baskets while the flowers are taken by the truckload to be composted.

The volunteers who water the baskets were recognized at Monday’s City Council meeting for their work.

“The Red Wing basket has really become an icon,” Mayor Dennis Egan said. “This group of dedicated volunteers … ensure the flower baskets continue to look great.”

When seasonal staff leaves after the summer, “we had a huge gap and void,” Egan noted. The volunteers helped fill that in and save the city roughly $2,000 by offering their time, he said.

Egan also thanked all the others who help make the baskets a reality, from Noontime Kiwanis, which raises money, to city staff to florists who help put them together.

Seasonal fall decorations are expected to go up throughout town later this week.

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