Sandy Hall stood at the corner of his family’s home on South 21st and Burt streets, and he wasn’t satisfied.
“The grass needs cutting,” he declared, scanning a precision-edged swath of green. “Overall, a whole lot of work needs to be done.”
Who would imagine? An hour earlier, Sandy and his spouse, Florence, had won the “best kept” beautification grand prize for 2023 during a luncheon at the downtown Castle Museum. So why so hard on himself?
TV5 News had attended Tuesday’s annual Neighborhood Recognition Awards and arranged a visit that same afternoon for a future feature story, so he wanted things to be just right.
“Is this only for the East Side, or was the West Side also included?” Sandy asked while he waited, still surprised that an honor would come to property in his own neighborhood, midway between Morley School Park on Lapeer and the Saginaw County CAC on Perkins.
Indeed, the prize has been citywide for six summers through S.C.E.N.I.C., the Saginaw Code Enforcement Neighborhood Improvement Cooperative. Inspectors are assigned not only to issue fines and penalties on eyesores, but to make note of the nice homes and landscaping that they observe. Residents may nominate neighbors, or even themselves.
City Hall chooses not to release specific addresses, only street names. This year’s locations range from Howard, Hazelwood and Carter on the East Side to Avon, Division and North Fayette on the West Side.
At 960 square feet the grand prize reflects that the winner need not be a large estate or a mini mansion. Sandy and Florence met as employees of the old Steering Gear, now Nexteer, married, and moved into the single-story structure in 1969, starting their family of four children.
The home had the appearance of “two front doors”, one on South 21st and the other on Burt, and so Sandy and Florence built a wraparound porch that remains as an eye-catching attraction. The brown-and-yellow exterior reflects Sandy’s favorite color combo, similar to his fishing boat.
He gains his civic pride from his father, Barnes Lee Hall (1926-2009), one of Saginaw’s first black police officers, who also was leader of volunteers with the Old Timers Club at First Ward Community Center.
The Halls are not happy with an overgrown woodlot that looms kitty-corner from their prize property, or with two abandoned homes down the street. Neighbors earlier this summer complained to the City Council that the overgrown railroad yard, a block away along South 20th, is worse-ever at bringing groundhogs to the area.
Sandy Hall has battled his share of the varmints, but he remains undeterred.
“When I was a teenager,” Sandy says. “My father sent me out State Street to Midland Road so I could have my own job working outdoors, cleaning up properties. The people only paid 50 cents an hour, so I was mad at him, but it was work. Just like now, somebody has to do it.”
