![\"pp3\"](\"http:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/pp3-300x200.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nIt features handmade benches, a \u201cfireplace\u201d on a brick building fa\u00e7ade, twinkling lights strung overhead \u2026 and, of course, the borough\u2019s Christmas tree.<\/p>\n
\u201cI loved the idea of doing a little living room outdoors,\u201d said Jenna Otto, a landscape architect student at Temple University and intern at Longwood Gardens who helped design the pocket park and the Christmas tree in her spare time. \u201cWe wanted a place where people could meet and gather.\u201d<\/p>\n
That place, now using the hashtag \u201cmeetmebythetree,\u201d grew out of a conversation Tara Dugan had with another merchant on a dreary day in February.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were looking at the tree area and thought it should be a community-minded space,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Mary Hutchins, the executive director of the Historic Kennett Square main street organization, brought the plan up at a borough council meeting.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe plan was to do something special around the tree,\u201d said Leon Spencer, president of Kennett Square Borough Council. After hearing about the idea for benches, he suggested approaching the carpentry department of the Technical College High School\u2019s Pennock\u2019s Bridge campus, where he serves as the School to Careers specialist.<\/p>\n
\u201cHaving the opportunity to build these benches feeds in to what we are all about,\u201d Spencer said. \u201cWe are here as best we can to serve the community.\u201d Teacher Gary Schmaltz and his carpentry students created the benches in about a week and a half. Students from both the morning and afternoon sessions built them, according to Spencer.<\/p>\n In early fall, Otto, Dugan and Claire Murray from HKS met to start working on the pocket park and the tree. Otto, who is pursuing her master\u2019s and who has a background in display design, drew the designs.<\/p>\n Otto and her husband Trevor built the fireplace and searched for mantels at antique stores. Otto\u2019s mother, Elana Dabkowski, also helped her daughter with the project.<\/p>\n Hannah Kelleher, who works at Philter\u2019s, helped with the A-frame chalkboard and fireplace as well, providing the \u201cfinal touches,\u201d according to Murray. Other volunteers included Joe and Sandra Mulry.<\/p>\n And the borough\u2019s public works staff hung the lights that provide a twinkling ceiling for the pocket park.<\/p>\n Throughout the remainder of the holidays, the pocket park will continue to play host to story times by the library and mini-concerts by visiting musicians at The Flash, according to Dugan, as well as continue to provide a place for people to sit and relax.<\/p>\n It will remain until the tree is taken down in early January.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n