MARQUETTE, Mich. (WZMQ) – Since 1978, the Marquette Beautification & Restoration Committee has been focused on preserving natural assets in the surrounding area. Their preparations to keep up with those traditions continue each year around this time. In 2024, the committee began an endowment fund for the 2025 season, to raise money towards the cost of flowers, soil supplements, and other garden maintenance needs.
“We want to be really good stewards of this impact as it grows, and keep it going,” said Gisele Duehring, the club president of the Marquette Beautification & Restoration Committee.
These funds will benefit their many events held every year. Some of these include a City Wide Spring Clean Up, Adopt-A-Highway Clean Up, the Garden Tour, and the annual Petunia Pandemonium.
Petunia Pandemonium is a two day event where students and community members plant hundreds of flowers along Highway 41 South leading into Marquette. Duehring says that these traditions often start from just the idea of one person.
“Nearly 50 years ago, one person had the idea to beautify Marquette by cleaning up and planting flowers where people enter the city,” said Duehring. “That idea gained traction through solution-minded people and has blossomed into what it is today.”
This year’s Petunia Pandemonium will be held on June 6 and 7.
For a full list of 2025 events, and the many ways to donate to the endowment, visit mqtbeautification.org.
