Sixteen years ago, Jan and Phyllis Wilson created a nonprofit organization they named Pride in Community Appearance. It has become widely known simply by its acronym — PICA. The goal was to mobilize volunteers to help make their hometown a more attractive place to live and work.

Gerry Schnepf, executive director of Keep Iowa Beautiful, was in Fort Dodge this past Tuesday to recognize PICA for its many successes and present the group with a prestigious honor — Keep Iowa Beautiful’s Organization Award for Excellence. He was effusive in his praise for this amazing Fort Dodge volunteer effort.

“If every community in the state of this size had a group like this, imagine what that would do to the appearance of the community,” Schnepf said. “This is a good model.”

PICA volunteers undertake assorted projects that enhance Fort Dodge city through landscaping, gardening and related projects.

Between Earth Day, which is April 22, and the first of November each year PICA volunteers are hard at work on beautification endeavors each Tuesday and Thursday. On those two days each week, the group meets from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m. and its volunteers are assigned to work at various venues.

Locations that have gotten PICA’s loving attention are numerous. They include the Fort Dodge Municipal Building, the Fort Dodge Public Library, the Fort Museum and Frontier Village, Veterans Park and assorted intersections all across town. The list of its worthy endeavors is already a long one and keeps getting longer. That’s good news indeed for our city.

Each year this remarkable group tackles projects that make our town a more beautiful place to live, work or visit. In PICA, the Wilsons have created an organization that is a superb example of what motivated volunteers can accomplish.

At the award ceremony Mayor Matt Bemrich joined in the tribute to PICA.

“Pride is a contagious effect,” he said. “So when you’re out working and you’re doing the things that you do, you’re creating that contagious effect of pride in our community. This is a very well-deserved award.”

The Messenger heartily agrees.

We congratulate Jan and Phyllis Wilson and the many PICA supporters on being honored by Keep Iowa Beautiful. We applaud your work and urge other Fort Dodgers to come forward and help keep this important community-betterment initiative thriving far into the future.