Partnership for Floyd Inc

Some PFF active members in our community park for Earth Day 2024

Several projects are keeping our members and friends busy in our quest to preserve and enhance the unique beauty and quality of life in and around Floyd, Virginia.  We need your help!  

A big project we are just beginning is a NEW COMMUNITY PARK AND TRAIL on 41 forested acres near Floyd County Elementary and High School.  We are working with Floyd County Parks and Recreation to establish a nice loop trail, botanical gardens, a picnic area with a shelter and tables, and parking. The biodiversity here will be highlighted with good educational signage. We have volunteer, experienced Naturalists, Educators, Writers and trail blazers who  are ready to help for the good of our community.

FLOYD EARTH WEEKS was a new adventure this year organized by PFF. About 15 different organizations and businesses sponsored free Nature activities to celebrate Earth Day for over two full weeks here in Floyd.  From guided nature hikes and seed swaps, to geological and natural history exhibits.  The Appalachian Species Giant Puppet Parade was the highlight of the weeks with Springhouse School organizing the making of over 100 giant puppets to honor local species. This big Community Earth Day event, held in Lineberry park, also highlighted the 20th anniversary of Partnership for Floyd, with a free ice cream social.

FLOYD FLOWER POWER, a Partnership for Floyd  group lead by Katrina Gravely and Jean Woods are partnering with Town, County, Sustain Floyd, Wild Garden Club, and many private businesses, schools and individuals, planting flowering plants and trees all around Floyd since last year.  Getting community involved at all levels.  Helping Floyd Bloom!

FREE WILDFLOWER WEDNESDAYS were enthusiastically enjoyed last summer, giving away hundreds and hundreds of seedlings.  Flowers are popping up all over as businesses and individuals join us to "MAKE FLOYD BLOOM" with beautiful flowers to brighten our lives and feed our pollinators.  Ideas are blooming, too, as local property owners take up the goal of adding native flowers and fruit trees to empty lawns or pastures. 

Flowers are known to be good for community spirit and, of course, good for our butterflies, bees and biodiversity! During the winter we provide seasonal decorations to replace flowers.

140  tree saplings were subsidized and sold cheaply on Earth Day this spring and last spring. Complete with tree tubes and stakes to protect them.

The 2023 FLOYD COMMUNITY HEALTH FAIR was a great success.  Over 40 different health professionals gathered to answer questions,  have conversations, and exemplify the wide range of healers we have in our community.

We partnered with Blue Mountain School to do a nature mural on the restroom at the Rec Park near the picnic shelter / playground area in 2023.  Students of all ages worked for months to research native wildlife to share a mural with our community.

Last Summer We completed eight nature fitness stations along the Dodd Creek Trail to help people limber up and strengthen every muscle while learning more about and enjoying nature.  That trail, behind the town-county athletic fields just off Route 8, and the Park-to-Library Trail in the middle of town, were built and improved in stages over the past seven years -- through our efforts and much public cooperation. 

Signs and labels at both trails now describe the surrounding trees, plants, and wildlife. Both of these trails are great for exercise and for learning about our natural habitat here on the Blue Ridge Plateau. PFF purchased a trail mower for the athletic park specifically for keeping the Dodd Creek Trail in good shape. Already the trail is being enjoyed by many more individuals and families of our community.

We expanded the nature trail up into the picnic area and children's playground to make that space more environmentally educational for all ages.  Educational Wildflower signs are posted at the Dodd Creek Trail entrance.

To build a brand new park and trail, expand the Flower Power plantings, and support educational trail and park upgrades and maintenance, we seek to raise at least $5,000 through the Give Local appeal.

All our work over the years has been carried out with generous gifts of money, materials, individual volunteer sweat and time, and the kind cooperation of our local governing bodies.  We at PFF are very grateful for our wonderful Floyd community!!

THANK YOU!!!