An Evergreen Garden

Photo by Evan Brandt

A mock-up of what the house-sized mural at 427 Chestnut St., overlooking the community garden, will look like when its finished. It was unanimously approved by council Wednesday night.

Even when winter’s snows blanket the borough’s first community garden in a few months, visitors will still be able to see flowers growing there thanks to a unanimous borough council vote Wednesday.

The vote approved a conditional use permit for the side of 427 Chestnut St. to be painted with a mural that faces the Mosaic Community Land Trust’s community garden next door.

Photo by Evan Brandt

Greg and Colleen Ciliberto own the home on which the mural

overlooking the garden will be painted.

The home, owned since 2012 by Greg and Colleen Ciliberto and, good neighbors that they are, they have given permission for their wall to be painted.

The project is an outgrowth of the Pottstown CARES group which undertakes a neighborhood clean-up once or twice a year and is a partnership of the borough, the school district, The Hill School and, more recently, Montgomery County Community College.

Assistant Borough Manager Erica Weekley told council that “art and culture are mentioned frequently at CARES meetings and the idea for the mural was inspired by the garden.”

Ellen Nelson, the chairperson of the art department at The Hill School said she agreed to organize the project but is not a muralist and so she was worried about pulling it off.

Luckily, she quickly found a local artist, Carrie Kingsbury of Promiseland Murals who volunteered to head it up.

A CARES team canvassed the neighborhood to find a design that everyone found pleasing, Nelson said.

“We wanted to evoke and inspire the community,” Nelson said.

A banner painted in the mural says “Pottstown Seeds for Success.”

The project will be made possible by a number of contributors, in addition to the Ciliberto’s contributing the wall of their house.

Reinhart Painting will help to put the primer down on which the mural will be painted, and the local Sherwin Williams store is contributing paint that will last as long as 18 years, Nelson said.

Lending a funding hand is the Rodney Day Fund, set up by an alumnus of the The Hill School.

Organizers hope to put up scaffold as soon as May 15 and finish by June 15 so that Pottstown and Hill School students will have a chance to participate in painting the mural.

“We see this as another visible way we can show the strength that is in our community,” said Weekley.