Grant Funds Eight Painted Murals, Landscaping, Park Benches, and New Pavilion
Furthering its commitment to Baltimore City and citizens, Baltimore’s local Coca-Cola bottler, Coca-Cola Consolidated, has invested $130,000 to beautify the Madison-Eastend neighborhood and its Frank C. Bocek Park.
Coca-Cola Consolidated, which operates a bottling plant adjacent to Bocek Park on North Kresson Street, tapped an innovative Baltimore-based organization called Arts & Parks to perform landscaping and paint wall murals in the Madison-Eastend neighborhood. Coca-Cola Consolidated’s grant also helped finance the building of a new pavilion and the addition of park benches. The work began in December 2017 and is anticipated to be completed this summer.
“Our commitment to beautify Madison-Eastend is about supporting our neighbors, caring for our friends, and fulfilling our commitment to inspire and serve,” said Leon Warner, Vice President of Manufacturing, Coca-Cola Consolidated. “Our ‘BIG HEARTS. mini cans.’ program is a partnership with our communities to refresh mind, body, and spirit. Our low and no-calorie mini cans might be small, but the hearts in our communities are big, and we’re honored to celebrate them.”
He continued, “We are honored to have played a role in helping refresh Bocek Park. I want to thank Mayor Pugh, Councilwoman Sneed, Parks Director Moore and the artisans at Arts & Parks for helping us to make this project possible.”
Quick Facts:
- Coca-Cola Consolidated invested $130,000 in park benches and a pavilion, landscaping and painted wall murals.
- The company worked with local community leaders, Rocky Brown and Maxine Lynch, on the project.
- Coke Consolidated took over the operations of the North Kresson Street bottling plant in April 2016.
- The company has 1,500 teammates in Maryland, with over 600 teammates employed in Baltimore.
- Coke Consolidated teammates volunteered several times during the project, planting trees, painting, and picking up trash.
Baltimore City Councilwoman Shannon Sneed, who represents the community and was instrumental in securing the grant from Coca-Cola Consolidated, said the investment is not only enormously
helpful but demonstrates how corporations can support and improve the communities where they operate.
“Coca-Cola Consolidated leaders and employees recognize and appreciate their roles as members of the Baltimore City family, and they share what is theirs, their time and treasure, with all of us, as good family members do,” Councilwoman Sneed said. “The work Coca-Cola Consolidated has done in Madison-Eastend and at Bocek Park speaks volumes about the company and its investment in our community.
Reginald Moore, Director of Baltimore City Recreation & Parks, said the partnership between Coca-Cola Consolidated and the Bocek Park community could help lead the way to a transformation of the neighborhood.
“What we are seeing are the steps of progress not only within Bocek Park, but the Madison-Eastend community,” Moore said. “Here we have a corporation teaming up with the city and the community to bring about change and hope as they rally around one of Baltimore City’s great parks.”
Arts & Parks, headed by street artist Justin “Nether” Nethercut and landscaper Elise Victoria, seeks to blend street art and purposeful landscaping to create holistic spaces in the neighborhoods of Baltimore, where both of them grew up. The murals and landscaping can be viewed along E. Madison Street, N. Curley Street, N. Linwood Avenue, N. Kenwood Avenue, E. Monument Street, N. Decker Avenue and in Bocek Park.
