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This year's Rockford Sharefest was all about beautifying the downtown Rockford Region, and what a difference! Rockford Sharefest started Friday, May 29th through Friday, June 5th in the downtown Rockford Region. As a partial observer and volunteer myself, I can honestly say I appreciate the city where I was born & raised just a little bit more. And I can see the fellow volunteers do as well.
The RACVB staff and I put our efforts in beautifying the Region last Tuesday, it was tough work but was also very rewarding. Many volunteers worked hard with many different projects, such as pulling weeds, planting flowers, repainting fire hydrants and much more! As I, and some of the other RACVB staff observed, there were many smiles going around while working that it was literally contagious! We couldn't help but smile and laugh with our fellow Rockfordians while seeing amazing changes to our beautiful city.
Lucky for me, I am able to see the hard work each volunteer is putting in every day since I work in Downtown Rockford. Volunteering to improve your community is not only rewarding for the city, but rewarding for yourself! I can fully appreciate the projects I was working on while walking by them everyday for work. You also get to meet amazing people while volunteering for the community. While working on replanting in Downtown, I had the privilege to talk with a very nice woman who has traveled I think everywhere in the world! Another project, I had the chance to speak with a grandfather who just completed an 8k run (5 miles)!
There are so many people in Rockford that we do not know, and projects, like Rockford Sharefest, only bring us together as a community and appreciate each other in different ways. I want to thank the volunteers who made Rockford Sharefest possible and were ahead of the projects the whole week! With your efforts, Rockford, Illinois is that much more of a beautiful place to live.
Rachel Nelson is the RACVB Marketing intern for the summer of 2015. Make sure to meet her at the Rockford City Market every Friday!
