As lovers of the Great Outdoors, the Gwinnett Clean and Beautiful (GC&B) team loves any opportunity to combine some of our favorite pastimes with Gwinnett County’s award-winning parks. April is the perfect opportunity to do a little eco-friendly crafting, find the ideal multi-use field or green space at a local park, and take your DIY kite out for its inaugural flight. But first…a little kite history
Via Unsplash.
The first kites were believed to have been created in China, although there is evidence that kites also made their first appearances in Malaysia, Indonesia, and the South Pacific. While some were used for recreational purposes, they were also crafted from natural materials like leaves and reeds to be used as fishing instruments.
The first recorded account was in China around 200 BC. Legend holds that General Han Hsin of the Han Dynasty flew a kite over the walls of a city he was attacking to measure how far his army would have to tunnel to reach past the defenses. By the 13th century, Chinese traders had spread the kite craze to Korea, India, and the Middle East. In 1295, Marco Polo described kites in his writings about his travels, and by the 14th and 15th centuries, kite flying hit the skies over Europe.
While it proved to be a common curiosity among children from the start, kite flying also had several scientific applications. In 1749, Alexander Wilson and Thomas Melville of the University of Glasgow in Scotland made the first recorded weather experiments using kites. Marking perhaps one of the most famous historic kite-flying events, Benjamin Franklin conducted electrical experiments using a kite in a lightning storm in 1752. By the late 1800s, kites were used regularly for meteorological observation. Avid kite flyers – Orville and Wilbur Wright – gleaned inspiration from flying box kites for the world’s first successful airplane.
While anyone can go out and buy a kite, it adds another layer of engagement to make one of your own. Needless to say, GC&B recommends repurposing materials to create your kite.
- Gather the materials you’ll need to make your kite. Newspaper or paper grocery bags make terrific foundations for your kite’s body, but some designs involve old t-shirts or plastic bags, as well.
- You can search the woods near your house for sticks that will serve as the “spine” and the “spar” of your kite – which can be lashed together in the shape of a “t” using thin garden twine or butcher cord to form the frame.
- Cover the frame with your newspaper, grocery bags, or fabric and fix it in place using scotch or masking tape.
- Attach a string (again using thin garden twine or butcher cord) to the spine long enough for your kite to take to the air and fly. Decorate your kite using markers or crayons.
Head to your favorite Gwinnett County Park to enjoy flying your own kite.
County awards contracts for bridges and roads
Gwinnett Commissioners awarded several transportation contracts recently.
The board awarded a $4.77 million contract to E.R. Snell Contractor, Inc. of Snellville to construct new fencing on Beaver Ruin Road and Center Way bridges over Interstate 85. The project also includes the installation of crosswalks at the intersection of Center Way and Brook Hollow Parkway. The safety-focused project is funded by the 2017 SPLOST program and was the only bid received.
The county also approved the resurfacing of over 200 miles of county roads.To maintain and extend the life of residential roadways, the Board awarded resurfacing contracts totaling $12.7 million to The Scruggs Company, dba Sunbelt Asphalt Surfaces, Inc. of Auburn and Triple R Paving and Construction, LLC of Fayetteville. The contracts will allow Gwinnett to resurface over 43 centerline miles of residential streets this cycle, with more than 200 miles scheduled for rehabilitation this year. The county is divided into three sections: north, central east, and west. Sunbelt Asphalt will manage the north section, while Triple R will cover the central east and west.
Braselton hospital has staff of nearly 2,000
Anyone who drives the stretch of Friendship Road between Interstate 985 and Georgia Highway 211 can see the area is one of the fastest growing in the state as they cruise past pristine active retirement communities, new shopping centers, thriving restaurants and a rapidly expanding Northeast Georgia Medical Center (NGMC) Braselton campus.
The hospital celebrated its 10-year anniversary on April 1 – surrounded by a thriving economic center that was just a dream more than two decades ago, when Northeast Georgia Health System’s (NGHS) volunteer board members and leadership team saw the potential for the future as they gazed across rolling pastures that spanned four counties.
Anthony Williamson, who led the design and construction, and then served as president of NGMC Braselton from its opening day in 2015 through 2024 remembers: “Our plan for Braselton was to do exactly what our mission urges us to do – improve the health of our community in all we do. We knew there was a tremendous need to make healthcare services more accessible in the Braselton area. It has been our honor to care for our growing community for the past 10 years, and the support we have received from the community has allowed us to become a new healthcare destination and serve as the driving force for surrounding infrastructure and growth.”
The vision quickly became reality when the hospital opened its doors. The number of people who came there for care far surpassed initial projections. In the decade that’s followed, NGMC Braselton has seen more than 10,000 baby deliveries, almost 500,000 emergency department visits and cared for more than 81,000 hospital in-room patients. Staff have performed more than 750,000 lab tests and delivered over one million meals to patients’ rooms – while serving another 3.5 million meals to visitors in the café.
Kevin Matson, who succeeded Williamson and now serves as NGHS vice president of Regional Hospitals in the system’s southern market with oversight of NGMC Braselton and NGMC Barrow, says: “We joke that we’ve had a crane at the hospital every day since it opened, and that’s not far from the truth. We’re in the midst of an expansion project now that’s adding two more floors to the main tower, which will be complete this summer, and will triple the size of the emergency room in 2026.”
NGMC Braselton opened with 100 beds in 2015, and the count is already up to 188 beds with more on the way. The hospital campus also includes three medical office buildings which are home to the Braselton Cancer Center, Braselton Surgery Center, Imaging Center of NGMC, several Northeast Georgia Physicians Group (NGPG) practices spanning multiple specialties, other physician practices and an Urgent Care center.
During the past decade, NGHS has recruited more than 150 physicians to NGPG and Georgia Heart Institute practices in the Braselton area. NGHS has also invested more than $1 billion in hospital expansions and medical office buildings in communities near the hospital including Hoschton, Dacula, Hamilton Mill, Auburn, Jefferson and Buford. And that number doesn’t include the cost of care when patients don’t have the ability to pay or the expense of community outreach such as free screenings and health education seminars.
When the hospital was nearing completion ten years ago, NGHS estimated that NGMC Braselton would initially create more than 500 new jobs. But today, there are nearly 2,000 staff members working in the Braselton market.
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