Community Beautification

Here at K&D Landscaping, our team lives the K&D Core Values, especially hunger. The K&D team possess a hunger for landscaping and a desire to improve the appearance of the local community. We define hunger as having the desire and dedication to go above and beyond what is expected for landscaping and improving the appearance of our local community. The idea of sharing this hunger with our local community was sparked by an office conversation in late 2016. Then we began thinking of ways to engage the community, especially the youth, and how to put these ideas into actions. As a result, our team came up with the ongoing Community Beautification Project.

At first it was an ambitious goal, but we set a goal to perform one beautification project per quarter, that’s four per year. Once the word spread about the new campaign, there was an overwhelming response of nominations. We have focused these projects on non-profit organizations and local schools that are in need of landscape improvements. According to K&D CEO, Justin White, “Getting to see the faces of the people this benefits after the project is complete makes our whole team smile!” K&D encourages all team members to give back and volunteer in the community as part of living the company’s Core Values. They understand the time and financial hardships it can create, so to help everyone participate, their employees are still compensated for their work on these projects even though K&D does not receive any revenue from it. “It is something we are very proud to be able to do,” says White.

The projects have made an impact on countless sites throughout the Santa Cruz county area. From historical houses, to women and children shelters, to vegetable garden boxes at elementary schools, and even county parks, the team at K&D strongly believes in giving back to the community that has given so much to them for the past 33 years of business. A beautiful landscape is always refreshing to see & can easily make a community members day brighter or better.

K&D’s Aptos Village Park Community Beautification took their typical beautification to the next level by installing drought tolerant plants, a rock retaining wall and providing increased sustainability to the park. Aptos Village Park was in need of these major improvements due to erosion issues and outdated landscaping. There was also an insufficient irrigation system which was wasting water that has now been updated.

One of the largest beautification projects K&D has been fortunate enough to sponsor was the Chanticleer Park, or better known as “Leo’s Haven,” in Live Oak. Justin, himself, provided countless hours of volunteer time to complete the project. He was able to leverage the resources of K&D along with eight other landscape companies by donating materials to make the park a reality!