HOLLAND, Mich. — The Tulip Time Festival is a pride and joy for the city of Holland and it takes the entire community to pull it off. It's why there's a community planting day each fall, something Holland Christian High School music director Scott VandenBerg has participated in the past four years. He's given hundreds of students the chance to plant tulip bulbs on community planting day.
"This year, we had just over 650,000 tulip bulbs that we planted. And it's our team in the city. It's hundreds of volunteers, city staff. Everybody takes part in making sure this happens. So, it's a big group effort, and it's a lot of fun, but a lot of work," said Andy Kenyon, Director of Parks and Recreation for the city of Holland at Centennial Park Thursday.
The tulip bulbs are shipped from the Netherlands and then planted in the city at the beginning of October.
"We encourage businesses, local people, to come out on a couple different days, half-days in the fall, where they plant a park or part of downtown," Kenyon said.
Some of those volunteers are VandenBerg's students.
"Every year I challenge them, you know, like 'Guys, we got to get all of 12th Street and all of West Washington Boulevard done. They did it last year. Can you do it?'" said VandenBerg.
He brings around 140 students to community planting day each year.
"They plant about 60,000 tulips in about three hours. So, hundreds of students come over a course of a few hours, and they plant the entire lanes. So, it's an amazing thing for us. It takes hours and hours, hours, if not probably days, actually, off of our team's responsibility list by having them plant," Kenyon said.
"It's not uncommon for us to finish one of our tulip planting days and have kids say, 'Oh, can we do this again?'" said VandenBerg. "I think that's going to impact how they see a city and how they care for a city, and then even maybe the community around them, the people around them as well."
VanderBerg said it's also a way for these kids to take ownership of their community.
"Some of them drive past the tulips on their way to school. For a kid to say, 'Oh, I saw my tulips today. They're coming up pretty well.' And so, I just think that kind of ownership is really good," Vandenberg added. "It's something that we want them to be a part of at our school, and we want kids to be engaged in their community, making an impact for all the people they live with, and for God."
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