Bristol’s Stephanie Krol received Block Grant funding to help continue her family tradition of decorating The Woods—a private trail for Bayridge residents—for the holidays
Stephanie Krol, Elkhart County resident and recent Elkhart County Block Grant recipient, and her family love nothing more than enjoying the holidays in their home in Bristol’s Bayridge neighborhood.
This year, Stephanie, along with her husband Mark, their children Max and Grace, and the family dog, Patrick, made sure there was no shortage of Halloween spirit in Bayridge. Krol used her Block Grant funding this past Halloween to transform The Woods–a private community trail in the neighborhood–into a spooky and fun Shangri-la for the whole neighborhood to enjoy.
The Elkhart County Block Grant Program is part of the Vibrant Communities initiative designed to support local residents in creating positive change where they live. The Block Grant program offers small grants to fund projects that promote community engagement, beautification, and revitalization across neighborhoods in Elkhart County.
“During the pandemic, we started decorating The Woods, a trail by our house, to try and provide some extra holiday cheer, not only to our kids but to the whole neighborhood,” said Krol. “It was a time when we thought it would be nice to try and spread good feelings around the holidays. In the first few years, we were very secretive about putting up the decorations. We would decorate for Halloween and Christmas without too much fanfare.”
Krol chalked up the first few go-arounds to simply being a fun thing she and her husband could do with Max, 12, and Grace, 8.
“From the start, this has been an amazing family project,” Krol said. “Our son Max is a theatre kid at Premier Arts, and he loves set design. He’s really gotten into this over the years with his dad, and both kids really look forward to the times of year when we decorate The Woods. When we started this, though, it was during the pandemic and we didn’t know what our neighbors really thought about all the decorations.”
It’s all in the notes
It wasn’t long before the answers to that uncertainty started to arrive in the form of notes left along the decorated trail by the Krols’ appreciative, exuberant neighbors.
“We started to find notes other residents were leaving for us on the trail in response to the decorations, and that is when we knew just how much our neighbors were enjoying this,” said Krol. “We’ve had the sweetest notes left for us—notes from residents with grandkids saying things like ‘This is our grandkids’ favorite thing to do when they visit and it makes them look forward to coming back.’ We’ve had people tell us how much they love walking their dogs on the decorated trail, and some folks have even left contributions and donations for us.”
According to Krol, she and her family never imagined their early decorating efforts would turn into a Bayridge tradition, but that seems to be the case.
“For Halloween this year, we had a lot of fun with it,” she said. “We were happy to receive Block Grant funding. We were able to add a lot of new excitement to the Halloween display. We added bouncing spiders that move in the woods, some new characters and all sorts of upgraded decorations. And we added pumpkins into the mix just before Halloween arrived. It was really nice this year, and we received so much great feedback. We’re glad to do whatever we can to improve our community, and our whole family feels great about bringing extra holiday cheer to our Bayridge neighbors.”
Apply for an Elkhart County Community Grant!
If you have an idea to improve your Elkhart County neighborhood, don’t miss out on the funding you need to make it happen! It’s easy to apply for Block Grant funding. A simple application and you and your neighbors will be on your way to making Elkhart County an even better place to live, work, and play! Apply for Block Grant funding at https://vibrantelkhartcounty.org/block-grants/.
Additional community grant funding is also available in the form of smaller micro-grants, up to $500, through the Little BIG Idea Grant program. To apply for a Little BIG Idea Grant award, please visit https://vibrantelkhartcounty.org/lbig-application/.
Bristol’s Stephanie Krol received Block Grant funding to help continue her family tradition of decorating The Woods—a private trail for Bayridge residents—for the holidays. Krol, along with her husband Mark, their children Max and Grace, and the family dog, Patrick, made sure there was no shortage of Halloween spirit in Bayridge. Krol used her Block Grant funding to transform The Woods–a private community trail in the neighborhood–into a spooky and fun Halloween Shangri-la for the whole neighborhood to enjoy.
The Elkhart County Block Grant Program is part of the Vibrant Communities initiative designed to support local residents in creating positive change where they live. The Block Grant program offers small grants to fund projects that promote community engagement, beautification, and revitalization across neighborhoods in Elkhart County.
