Monday, November 10, 2025
After months of neighborhood chatter about litter, tired planters and faded facades, Rockville Centre has a new path forward: a Beautification Council, uniting residents and businesses as village partners to “bring the charm back.”
Focused on improving the community, the council is made up of concerned citizens and representatives of the Rockville Centre Civic Association, the Chamber of Commerce and the village board. It is part of the Rockville Centre Conservancy, a nonprofit organization that collects donations to fund beautification projects.
The council’s creation was announced at the Sept. 8 village board meeting, with the intention of coordinating projects around the village, starting along Village Avenue and Long Beach Road. The plan is to improve streetscapes with planters, banners and flags as well as block-by-block cleanups.
“If we start with that, it’ll get the buzz going and get the other people talking about it throughout town,” Keely Collins, the council’s board head chair said.
Its approach will be to blend small projects that can be completed quickly, like the planters and banners, with longer-term “corridor pride” work led by “street captains” who will spearhead larger projects.
The council is accepting donations, and also received a grant from the village to kick-start its efforts. It currently has $20,000, and has already begun working with business owners on ways to make the streets more vibrant and inviting.
“We know everybody’s like, ‘Well, the village should pressure-wash every corner’” Collins said. “That’s not the village’s job. It’s your storefront. It’s just like your home — clean the front of your home, take care of that. Get out there on a daily basis.”
Council leaders emphasized that beautification works best when business owners and residents pitch in by sweeping, tending planters, tidying windows and door thresholds and reporting problem spots.
“There’s just a lot that goes into it,” Collins said. “There’s a lot of steps, procedures, but we’re committed to it. We want it to happen — we love our village. We want to bring the charm back.”
After the pandemic, many plans for village beautification were set aside, but the issue lingered in the minds of several concerned citizens, like Collins.
“Things looked different — things weren’t taken care of the way they were before,” she said. “And some of that was very noticeable, and was being commented on a lot on social media. And it was a group of us that felt like, ‘Let’s not complain on social media, because that doesn’t really do anything. Let’s take action; let’s make something happen.’”
Collins had already been involved in efforts to improve the village. “I was working at one of the shops in town and I used to hear people come in and complain about stuff,” she recalled. “I’m like, ‘I don’t want to hear this, I can’t hear this every day, we’ve got to do something about it.’”
Chamber of Commerce President Ed Asip and Vice President Donna O’Reilly Eineman joined the council after hearing similar concerns from merchants.
“It’s something that we as a chamber have been thinking about for a while,” Asip Chamber of Commerce President said, “and we were considering raising money for beautification and trying to put programs together like that.”
Civic association board member, Catie Carter, said the effort is also a response to the loss of the canopy of trees and the character they brought to retail corridors.
“I grew up … (when) we had tree-lined streets on Park Avenue and North Village,’ Carter said. “And I know there’s been challenges, and there’s been reasons why those trees aren’t there anymore. So the goal of everything is to get the business owners involved and really just excited about their storefronts, and partnering with the village as well.”
To translate ideas into action, the council assigned street captains — residents and business owners who will act as liaisons to the council. On Long Beach Road, the captains include Lisa Umansky, of Polka Dot Pound Cake; James McDonald, of I Lost My Dog; and Monica Rubin, of School of Rock.
The captain system is intended to speed communication about litter hot spots, planter needs, event opportunities and parking concerns, and to mobilize volunteers for quick cleanups.
According to the council, residents should begin to see new planters and banners along Village Avenue and Long Beach Road in the coming weeks, followed by additional corridors as donations and volunteer capacity grow. Longer-term ideas include seasonal color rotations, coordinated storefront window updates to attract customers and partnerships with civic and school groups for themed beautification days.
The council’s mission statement notes that the goal of the group is “to foster a sense of community pride and engagement by creating and maintaining beautiful welcoming spaces throughout the village. This will be accomplished by partnering with residents, businesses, Village Government, and organizations to enhance the beauty, charm and vibrancy of our community.”
Residents and shop owners who want to volunteer, donate or connect with their street captain can email RVCBeautificationCouncil@gmail.com.
