Forest City Beautiful

Follow Forest City Beautiful all year long on Facebook here. 

Donate

Please consider donating to Forest City Beautiful to assist in downtown Rockford beautification efforts.

About Forest City Beautiful

Since its inception in 2014, the mission of Forest City Beautiful has been to improve downtown civic spaces by restoring public landscapes, building and planting seasonal planters, and installing public art sculptures and large-scale murals for local residents and visitors to enjoy. In addition, benches, bistro tables and chairs, and directional way-finding signage have been sprinkled throughout State Street, and additional trash receptacles have been added to help keep the downtown beautiful, clean and functional!

When you choose to support Forest City Beautiful, you’re not only making our city more vibrant and instilling pride: you’re also supporting the people and businesses in our community.  Sponsoring a plot of earth near your home or business means ensuring your local nurseries, greenhouses, and landscaping companies will continue to thrive.  Sponsoring murals and public art means cultivating our city’s creative class and giving those individuals the opportunities they need to make Rockford their home. Sponsoring restoration projects means our local environmentalists will have the resources they need to continue to make our region’s green spaces more sustainable for future generations.

RACVB understands that making Rockford a stunning place to live, work, and visit means empowering the community to bootstrap itself into the one-of a kind beautiful place that it is and will continue to be.

To quote Tana Vettore, former director of destination development for the RACVB:

“The Forest City Beautiful project has helped to dramatically change the perceptions of our region by providing cleaner and more attractive spaces, which has led to a better quality of life for our residents and richer experiences for visitors. Our partners, including our great partnership with the City of Rockford, have certainly allowed us to do more, grow faster, and show the community the value of creating spaces people can enjoy. We are extremely grateful and excited to continue this mission to love on our city even more in the years ahead.”

If you are interested in supporting the Forest City Beautiful initiative, download the sponsorship document HERE or contact Kristen Paul at kpaul@gorockford.com.

Invitation to Bid

We invite community businesses to consider placing a bid for the landscaping and maintenance components of Forest City Beautiful. There are four opportunities including, winter planters, watering services, seasonal landscape maintenance, and summer planters. Applications close February 21, 2022 with the contract to be awarded March 1, 2022.

Winter Planter Invitation to Bid
Watering Services Invitation to Bid
Seasonal Landscape Maintenance Invitation to Bid
Summer Planter Invitation to Bid

Sponsors

Forest City Beautiful is supported by the generous donations of individuals and organizations in the community. In 2014, RACVB seeded the initiative with $80,000 from its board-designated Wendy Perks Fisher Fund for Innovation and from an initial commitment of $110,000 from the City of Rockford. In addition to seed funding from the City and RACVB, more than $120,000 has been raised to support the multi-year beautification effort. We’re so proud to be a part of a community that supports its public spaces and its people.

For more details on Sponsorship Options, click HERE!