BEAUTIFY PULLMAN

BEAUTIFY PULLMAN
Building Community Through Beautification
Exclusive Interview with Patty Conway
Featured in 'Innerviews'
Hosted by Allié McGuire

​Beautify Pullman was never just about beautification—it was about connection, restoration, and the quiet power of showing up. Founded in 2020 to bring people together around meaningful change, the organization continues to transform both spaces and lives. Patty brings us inside that movement, where every project tells a story of belonging.

ALLIÉ: When you think about Pullman, Patty, not just as a place but as a feeling, what does it mean to you personally, and how has your connection with the community shaped the way you show up in the work that you do with Beautify Pullman?

PATTY: That is an excellent question. Let me think about it for a minute. Pullman is a small rural community where everybody knows everybody. My husband and I chose to retire there because it's absolutely beautiful. There are lakes and forests and beautiful farmland, and it's a welcoming community. However, it is a victim of things that happened in the past. Decades ago, a factory moved away, and it’s been the victim of disinvestment for quite a while. So although there's a lot of natural beauty, there's not a lot of resources, there's not a lot of infrastructure, but it's a great place to live and to relax. I'm retired, but there are many, many young families in Pullman as well.
​

​ALLIÉ: How long have you been in Pullman now?

PATTY: I have been in Pullman full time for 10 years. However, I've been visiting the area for 40 years because I have family in the area.

ALLIÉ: And you said it's a small population. What kind of population are we looking at?

PATTY: So Pullman is a community. It's not a village, it's not a town, but it makes up most of Lee Township. And Lee Township is about 3,800 people. Most of the people in Lee Township have a Pullman address, so Pullman is probably about 3,500 people.

ALLIÉ: All right. Let’s talk more about Beautify Pullman. It isn't just about making things look better, it’s about restoring spaces that belong to everyone. Was there a moment when you realized that this work was about something deeper than beautification, something more human maybe?

PATTY: Absolutely, and that’s also an excellent question. I moved to Pullman full time just before COVID started happening. Once we were all there and not able to do much, I met some women and we would get together outside in people's yards.

Two of the women I met have lived there for a long time. One is a fifth generation Pullmanite. The other has been there for a few decades. They told me some of the history of the community and that they were working to better the community by making it more beautiful. They wanted to landscape downtown. They remembered when Pullman had a department store, a factory, and a large grocery store. We have a few small grocery stores now. Back in the 70s, Pullman was quite prosperous.

But many of these things moved away when the factory moved away. So I met these women, and they had a vision that was wonderful. I joined them and brought some background that I have in nonprofits. We decided to incorporate and create a nonprofit.

We really did just start with beautification. We started by landscaping, installing some planters, downtown concrete planters. One of the planters is on a very prominent corner and it says, “Welcome to Pullman.” In our first year, we also hired a well known muralist out of Kalamazoo named Conrad Kaufman to take a building that was very nondescript and paint a mural about the history of the area, starting from the Native American mound builders, through the loggers, through the farmers, to the very diverse community that we have today. That really helped us define Pullman. This is where we live, this is where we want to invest. This is the heart of our community.

Then we thought, people are really interested in what we're doing. This community needs more. We were very fortunate that within about 16 months of being formed, we were awarded a large grant from the Office of Agriculture and Rural Development, a rural development grant to create a park right downtown in Pullman at the main intersection. We felt the community needed a place to gather, both formally and informally, a place to hold events, a place for the community to come together, a hub. So we built that in 2022, and since then, we’ve had a lot of activity.

The park has a 2,400 square foot pavilion, so we were able to bring in concerts. We're going to start movie nights this summer. Once we opened up the park, the VFW approached us about having a corner for a veterans memorial. We worked with them to build the veterans memorial. It has over 500 names of locals who served, all the way back from the War of 1812 to those who are serving today. We hired an artist to make a beautiful statue, and we have an honor wall that names as many of the veterans as we could identify.

ALLIÉ: That's incredible. It sounds like it rings very true, going back to the Field of Dreams. If you build it, they will come. If you build it, the community will come together.

​PATTY: Absolutely. We wanted everyone to feel invested in the place, especially children. Growing up, they would know that when they finished high school or moved away, they have something to come back to that they remembered. So we had this idea that turned out to be wonderful. We gave every child in the community a four inch circular tile to paint.

Then we hired an artist to make a beautiful mosaic of a tree. It’s about nine feet wide and five or six feet high, and it’s right in the park. That was four years ago, and kids are still going up saying, “There’s my tile. I did that in first grade or third grade.”

We had the art teacher at the school help us, and we also had many days where we would just have the paints out in the park and people could come and paint their tile. We didn’t restrict who could participate. We have people who come every summer, and of course they should have a tile because they’re going to keep coming back.

There are hundreds of tiles, and it’s absolutely a beautiful mosaic. It’s something the kids can return to with their own children one day and point to what they did to help make this park what it is.

ALLIÉ: What an incredible thing to truly feel physically part of a community.

So, it sounds like so much of this work is driven by volunteers, by people choosing to care. What have you learned about people, about generosity, about pride, about belonging through this process of building something together?

PATTY: That’s another excellent question. Our community is really volunteer driven because we have very minimal government. We have a part time supervisor and a part time board of trustees. Many of the improvements in the community are driven by volunteers.

For example, the Memorial Day Parade is run by the VFW, but it’s all volunteer. We have a disc golf course that some people years ago just decided to create behind the school along the river. It’s a wonderful course.

We knew it was a community driven by volunteers. What we did not know was the extent to which people would rise up and help us. The park had hundreds, possibly thousands of volunteers who helped. Churches called us and said they wanted to donate flowers and plant gardens. People built structures. We have a beautiful 34 foot train in the park that kids can climb all over.

We put a call out to contractors, and they brought their teams for free. We built it over a weekend. They brought generators, trucks full of tools. It was amazing.

That train also reflects Pullman’s history. The town grew because of the train, just like many logging communities. The mills opened up, logging began, and ultimately it led to the farmland we have today.

We estimate over 200 volunteers help us every year. In 2025 alone, over 200 people answered our call and came out to support what we do.

ALLIÉ: That is so awesome. Communities like Pullman, where resources aren’t abundant, often have something stronger, this connection. How have you seen that truth play out, especially when progress felt uncertain or slow? Can you share a moment where community carried something forward?

PATTY: Communities like ours, when they suffer from disinvestment over decades, lose pride and civic participation. But that’s largely because of a lack of social connection and cohesion. Building this park helped bring that back. Although we own the property, the park is always open. Everything there is free. We don’t want anyone to miss out because they can’t afford admission.

​When we were building the park, we received a $100,000 grant, but it cost $165,000 to build. In the end, we’ve invested well over $200,000. People showed up to move dirt, landscape, build structures. Someone donated the flagpole. We have a 30 foot flagpole by the Veterans Memorial.

Every year we have a planting day in May, where people come out and plant flowers throughout the community. It kicks off the summer, and by Memorial Day, everything looks beautiful.

ALLIÉ: That’s incredible. One more question for you, Patty. If someone who has never heard of Beautify Pullman were to walk through one of these spaces, what would you hope they feel? And what would you want them to understand about what it took to create this?

PATTY: I would hope they feel the same pride that we have, that we are a community that shows up for each other.
I want them to know that we don’t have a lot of resources, but we can accomplish a lot by working together. I want them to feel like Pullman is a welcoming place, a place that is open to everybody.

ALLIÉ: I think that’s a beautiful response. There are so many times when you walk into a community and feel unsure if you belong. I love that you said you hope they feel your pride and feel welcomed to be part of that.

PATTY: The park is just a beautiful space. We have a gazebo, a large pavilion, and areas where people can simply sit and have lunch. It’s beautifully landscaped. By mid summer, there are flowers blooming everywhere.

We’ve had trees donated that are starting to create shade. You’ll see children playing. We want people to come in, feel our pride, feel welcome, and feel like it’s a place where they can relax, meet a friend, or attend a concert or movie. The gates are always open.

We also installed and support a public hotspot because Wi-Fi is expensive. People come to apply for jobs or communicate. We recently had fiber installed, but until then, internet access was unreliable and expensive. This is just another way we try to make the space welcoming. ∎

Learn more about Beautify Pullman: www.beautifypullman.org