Improvements in Tattnall Park

Tattnall Square Park is slowly going through a steady change of pace.
Last year, Tattnall Square Park received a grant from the Knight Foundation through an idea proposal called the Knight Neighborhood Challenge.
The Knight Foundation rewarded a grant of about $33,000 toward trees for Tattnall. A total of 225 trees have been planted within the last year.
The Knight Neighborhood Challenge allowed individual people and groups of organizations to present ideas for improving the community in Macon.
Those who presented to the board of Knight Neighborhood Challenge had to know exactly what the donated money would go toward.
The most noticeable changes in Tattnall at the moment are the variety of recently planted trees, the sitting wall by the pavilion and the garden near the sitting wall.
An organization called Friends of Tattnall is made up of Macon residents, along with Mercer students and faculty.
The group works together to discuss park issues and generate new ideas to improve it.
The leader of Friends of Tattnall is senior Annie Biggs, and the chairman is Andrew Silver, an English professor at Mercer.
Silver has helped to plant numerous trees in Tattnall and to paint the pavilion located near the playground.
Since the grant from the Knight Foundation, people around the community want to become more involved with improving the park.
People see changes happening and want to be a part of that change.
“What we found is that, once you start investing in a park, more investment follows. Basically what happened was that people started contacting us and asking if they could donate a little bit more money for trees. So we got more trees around the playground.” Silver said.
The new trees are planted in an outlined design that will be more visually appealing to pedestrians.
Some of the trees planted are flowering trees, shade trees, and magnolias.
Planting more trees is not only good for improving the park’s appearance, but also for replacing older trees that may fall soon.
Some of the bigger existing trees in the park are around 100 years old.
According to Silver, of the 12 tennis courts in the park, only two are going to be removed. The remaining 10 will be fixed up to look more appealing to the community.
In the future, Friends of Tattnall hopes to see even more improvements to Tattnall Square Park.
For instance, ideas for a reflection pool or a big piece of art to be added to the park have been mentioned.
Tattnall Square Park is a piece of history that has been around since 1823.
“I think parks are a way of measuring a community’s commitment to each other. So we want to make sure to let people know that Macon is a place with a thriving community.” Silver said.
Having an eye-catching park will help bring interest to the area for both residents and visitors of Macon.
Friends of Tattnall hopes to get more people interested in the park and find donors willing to help out with improving it.