On Thursday, Waco Police officials and community members dedicated the Peace Garden at Waco Police Department headquarters.
Police Chief Sheryl Victorian hosted the ceremony. Donors Tevita and Makenzie Asisi, who contributed $10,000 to the project, held the scissors to cut the ribbon.
The Peace Garden features two large, brightly painted brick garden boxes filled with seasonal plants and a mural as well as decorative benches and windmills.
“We are 100% behind our police officers, firefighters and first responders,” Tevita Asisi said.
Makenzie Asisi said she was happy to have the opportunity to help create a place where first responders can relax, decompress and find some serenity.
The initial idea for the garden and mural came from Christina Klineske-Barnum, who works at the Police Department’s Public Archives. Robin Ameny, who works in the Office of the Police Department Budget, came up with the idea of increasing the number and type of plants and founded Keep Waco Beautiful to help bring those ideas to fruition.
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Carole Fergusson, executive director of Keep Waco Beautiful, said her organization found artist Will Suarez to paint the mural.
Keep Waco Beautiful also recruited students from Baylor University to help plant flowers, vegetables and other plants in planters last spring, Fergusson said.
Police Department social worker DeAngela Bynum previously said that even a few minutes of looking at plants, or watering and tending to them, would put department staff in a better frame of mind for their next call or home. home at the end of their shift.
Both Asisis said they have police and other first responders in their immediate family. Tevita said he and his wife had a sense of the pressures and stressors involved, and were happy to help create space to improve serenity among first responders.