In 2009, a group of community volunteers with a vision to improve the look of Downtown stepped forward to make it a reality. This was a response to the town’s Downtown Vision Plan, which had identified nine catalysts for improving the vacant look of Avenue of the Fountains and areas around Fountain Park.

The purpose of the Greening of Downtown committee was to make the Downtown more attractive to residents, visitors, and investors by adding attractive and educational landscaping and shade. Public funds were not available, so this group of enthusiastic volunteers raised funds through private donations.

Since the beginning of this program, over $300,000 in improvements to the Downtown area has been provided through donations and grants. This allowed the committee to accomplish the following:​

• 165 trees planted in Fountain Park
• Joe & Marge Brown Legacy Plaza & commemorative columns
• Low-water demonstration garden
• Butterfly & hummingbird garden
• Sonoran cactus garden
• Performance pad landscaping & planters
• Island green area maintenance
• Disc Golf sidewalk buffer landscape zones
• 7 downtown vacant lot landscape enhancements
• Centennial Circle landscaping

Greening of Downtown participated in the Virtual Earth Day 2020 event with a video about the Low-Water Demonstration Garden in Fountain Park.

The Greening of Downtown program has completed all its goals and is no longer accepting donations. There may be projects in the future, but for now it has gone quiet.

We thank all the volunteers who got their hands dirty to beautify our Downtown and those who made it financially possible.

To learn more, visit iLoveFountainHills.org/greening-of-downtown.

Did you know you can donate to FHCCA while shopping on Amazon Prime and it won’t cost you a penny?

When you sign up for Amazon Smile through your account and select FHCCA as your charity, Amazon will donate 0.5% of every eligible purchase to our organization. This does not cost you anything extra.

If you have an Amazon account, but have not designated it as an SmileAmazon account, it’s easy:

Step 1. Visit https://smile.amazon.com and sign up or into your Amazon account.​

Step 2. Type “Fountain Hills Cultural and Civic Association” in the search bar indicated.

Step 3. Select “Fountain Hills Cultural and Civic Association” on the following page.

Remember, if you want Amazon to donate to Fountain Hills Cultural and Civic Association, you need to start each shopping session at the URL http://smile.amazon.com, and Amazon will donate 0.5% of the price of your eligible purchases.

Please consider making the FHCCA the recipient of your Amazon Smile Charitable contributions. Thanks!

Following a community workshop of Vision Fountain Hills in 2016, Dori Wittrig walked away knowing the town needed a new generation of potential community leaders. With the help of John Craft, she assembled a team of people who put their brains and networking skills together to quickly pull together the first class of the Fountain Hills Leadership Academy that same year. The success of the new program immediately sent ripples throughout the community.

The Leadership Academy is an 8-week intense immersion into the Town’s governmental processes, civic and community services and organizations, public safety, environmental management, local schools, and so much more. Participants meet community leaders who share ideas about the future of Fountain Hills and current challenges being faced.

At graduation, participants presented a project to Town leaders based on offering a solution to a challenge in the community or proposing a new idea to add value to the community. Past projects have included wrong-way drivers on Palisades Boulevard, creating a downtown arts district, effective public transportation services for employees who don’t live in town, a salt reduction program for residents who use water softeners, a grant assistance program for Town staff, and more.

Graduates have gone forward as better-informed citizens and have stepped into leadership roles throughout the community. They sit on dozens of boards of local non-profit organizations, serve the Town as commissioners, started PACs for local elections, and serve on Town Council and the Sanitary District board.

The 2020 class has been suspended due to COVID-19 restrictions that would have significantly dampened the effectiveness of the in-person program. The next class will resume in September 2021. Applications will be available in the Spring.

To learn more about the Fountain Hills Leadership Academy, visit iLoveFountainHills.org/leadership-academy