Great Little Park on Main
Master Gardener, Ashley Johnson, with some great information regarding planting your native trees
Park News
Local Girl Scout, Jasmyn Charlton, Applied and Won a Grant for the Park!
Have you visited the Great Little Park on Main lately? It continues to develop and, well, grow. Our latest park progress is the work of Jasmyn Charlton, a rising ninth grader at Christiansburg High School and daughter of Jackie and Marcus Charlton. Jasmyn selected the Great Little Park as her Girl Scout Silver Award project and is working with project mentor and New River Valley Master Gardener Ashley Johnson to bring more native plants into our park while maintaining the original design of the park created during the planning phase. During this project, she will be learning about native plants and their impact on our local ecosystem. Jasmyn applied and was awarded the Youth Educational Grant from the New River Chapter of the Virginia Native Plant Society. This grant will allow Jasmyn to purchase plants native to Virginia and also fund the purchase of a rain barrel for the park.
Jasmyn has been a girl scout with Troop 888 for nine years under the leadership of Aimee Lawson and Jeannine Eddleton, and will be bridging to be a Senior Girl Scout this fall. Jasmyn is also involved with travel and high school sports, playing volleyball and soccer. In her free time, she enjoys reading, traveling and spending time with family and friends.
Kudos to Jasmyn for her outstanding effort and being such an awesome community-minded member of our town!
Get Involved
Story of the Great Little Park On Main Street
In 2018 Downtown Christiansburg, Inc. and the Town of Christiansburg won a $3,000 grant from RALLY SWVA to build a community-led project and gain leadership skills.
Our goal is to create connections throughout the Town of Christiansburg that revitalize underused spaces, promote access, facilitate family-friendly community events and activities, celebrate our natural environment, and showcase local artisans, entrepreneurs, and volunteers.
We gathered the community for twenty planning meetings through October 2019 and May 2021 to create a catalyst project to kickstart our plans.
170 Christiansburg community members told us what they wanted and needed from a downtown park, and Balzer & Associates, a Christiansburg-based Architecture and Engineering firm, created two incredible designs.
217 community members voted on the final design, and the one depicted won!
The park is located in the heart of downtown at Great Road on Main, right across from the Christiansburg Farmers Market. An MOU between the property owner and the Town means the space is open to the public.
Great Road broke ground at the site in December 2020 with an outdoor dining expansion grant provided by the Town of Christiansburg and Montgomery County via the CARES Act. This front patio sits at the entrance to the park and will be a beautiful place to sit and view the garden.
To fully realize this community vision we need your help! In November 2020 the National Association of REALTORS® awarded us a $4,500 Placemaking grant for our community-led design, and we got an additional $500 from the New River Valley Chapter. This was the kickstart we needed, and now we need you to help us go all the way!
Construction will only continue with the support of individual and corporate donors. Once completed the park will be open to the public from sunrise until sundown.
