Jamaica Plain’s Christine Poff Wins Landscape Design Council Award

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The Landscape Design Council (LDC) of Massachusetts has recognized Jamaica Plain's Christine Poff, the director of Boston's Community Preservation Committee, as a 2018 awardee for excellence in the field of landscape design.

The Landscape Design Council (LDC) of Massachusetts has recognized Jamaica Plain resident Christine Poff, pictured, community preservation director for the city of Boston, and Marie Stella, landscape designer and historian, as its 2018 awardees for excellence in the field of landscape design. (Courtesy photo)

Poff is the 2018 recipient of the Landscape Design Council Award for Excellence, given in recognition of outstanding civic accomplishment.

“Throughout her career, Christine has worked in many ways to make life better for citizens,” said LDC chairman George Papavasiliou, via press release. “We particularly applaud her efforts on behalf of Boston’s Franklin Park and the Emerald Necklace Conservancy, which stand out as supportive of the Landscape Design Council’s mission.”

File photo: Christine Poff, right, enjoys Franklin Park with a Franklin Park Coalition board member.

Chris Helms

Christine Poff, right, enjoys Franklin Park with a Franklin Park Coalition board member.

As political director of the National Association of Social Workers, Poff advocated for economic and social justice bills at the Massachusetts State House, but she is likely better known for her 14 years’ service as executive director of the Franklin Park Coalition, a nonprofit organization that gives a community voice to Boston’s Franklin Park. She worked to bring back such beloved park institutions as the Elma Lewis Playhouse, the FPC Youth Crew, and the annual Kite and Bike Festival.

In addition, she chaired the Park Overseers of the Emerald Necklace Conservancy. She began the citywide network of park leaders, the Boston Park Advocates, to help bring attention to the City's open spaces. She continues to work with the Roxbury Cultural Network.

As the Director of the Community Preservation Committee, Poff works to collect information about housing, preservation, and open space projects that civic groups want and to help decide which grant applications should be funded by the real-estate transaction tax that Bostonians voted for in 2017.

About The Landscape Design Council of Massachusetts

Organized in 1963, the Landscape Design Council of Massachusetts operates under the auspices of National Garden Clubs, Inc. (NGC) and is a special-subjects group of the Garden Club Federation of Massachusetts, Inc. The purpose of LDC is to provide ongoing landscape-design education through speakers, workshops, and tours of outstanding public and private areas. The Massachusetts chapter is the largest Council in the US. It provides judges for the Boston Flower & Garden Show and presents three landscape-design awards of its own.

LDC members have completed Landscape Design School, a series of four 10-hour courses, and passed the required examinations, entitling them to become NGC-accredited Landscape Design Consultants. Members act in an advisory capacity to encourage awareness of the need for good landscape architectural practice, serving as guardians of environmental beauty by applying what they have learned to individual and community projects. LDC members promote environmental interests through work on town committees and boards. Members have been responsible for many landscaping projects at municipal buildings and other public areas in their cities and towns. A number have gone on to earn certificates in landscape design, or Master's degrees in landscape architecture, and to establish their own businesses.

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