The Annual Membership Meeting is held between October 1 and December 31 and traditionally coincides with a Neighborhood Christmas Party.
The program includes Board member elections, the association financial report, and a review of the year’s activities. This informal event is a great way to mingle with neighbors, catch up on news, and enjoy the season.
The MWCA hosts occasional community meetings and presentations on topics that matter to residents.
For several years, MWCA sponsored a neighborhood “Fire Ant Funeral” in the fall or spring. Participation is voluntary. The product used is not a pesticide but a fire ant sterilant that prevents fire ant queens from reproducing. It is easy to apply using a hand-held garden spreader and safe for children, animals, and beneficial insects. Neighborhood volunteers package the sterilant into yard-sized packets that also contain spreading instructions.
Though participating households have valued the service, Fire Ant Funerals require a high degree of coordination and widespread participation to maximize the benefits. If participation is spotty, ants can move from untreated yards into spaces that have already been treated and re-introduce these ant pests. Each year, the MWCA Board “takes the pulse” of the neighborhood to determine if there is sufficient enthusiasm to schedule another Fire Ant Funeral. If you value the service, consider filling out the Contact Form, suggesting the Board schedule another Fire Ant Funeral. Better yet, volunteer your assistance as well.
Each Halloween, MWCA hosts a free Neighborhood Halloween Party at the Magnolia Woods Pool Clubhouse for neighborhood families. The parties begin just a few hours before trick-or-treating begins. Activities include Halloween games and crafts, refreshments, and family photo opps in front of our festive decorations. Children and adults are urged to come in costume and compete for prizes in categories for Boys and Girls of various ages, and even a Best Family competition.
The Neighborhood Halloween Party is a great way for neighbors of all ages to catch up on neighborhood news and share some safe, family-friendly holiday fun.
MWCA held its first Hazardous Waste Drop-off Service in Spring 2019: a coordinated effort to help Magnolia Woods families transport their residential hazardous materials to the Municipal Hazardous Waste Recycling Day at Memorial Stadium. The service proved so popular it will be continued each fall and spring. Here’s how it works.
Residents bring residential hazardous waste that meets the city’s collection criteria to MWCA’s designated collection drop-off during a drop-off window in the early morning hours of the Hazardous Waste Collection Day. Neighborhood volunteers check the materials as they are dropped off for compliance with the City’s collection criteria, then sort and load accepted materials for transport to Memorial Stadium. No commercial waste is accepted and proof of neighborhood residency maybe be requested (for example, a driver’s license or envelope with a neighborhood address).
Check this website the week before the Municipal Hazardous Waste Collection Day for the neighborhood drop-off location and hours. Help support this valuable service by sharing your time and/or vehicle. Use the Contact Form to volunteer.
Residents who have lived in Magnolia Woods for several decades remember a different environment than that which exists today. Our yards and streets were once much shadier and cooler than they are now. Many more large shade trees graced our yards from the beginning of the neighborhood because the people who chose to live here wanted to live in a forest, not a cow pasture, and took pains to preserve as many trees as possible. There was a “forest ethic”, an understood value of trees shared by those early residents.
Over time a series of hurricanes took their toll on many of our magnificent trees. Old age and disease have taken their toll, as well. Many of the neighborhood’s original residents have passed away or moved, to be replaced by a new generation unaware of the forest ethic of Magnolia Woods. Still, many beautiful trees remain and continue to draw people to the park-like setting we enjoy, and often take for granted. Although they often outlive us, trees, like all living things are mortal. In order to maintain and even maximize the benefits they provide we must continue to replant.
MWCA launched its reforestation project in Fall 2012 by working with forestry specialists at the LSU AgCenter and the LSU Hilltop Arboretum to develop a list of native, storm and drought resistant trees the association could recommend to Magnolia Woods residents. Initially, MWCA offered free trees from the list to residents whose yards were stripped bare by hurricanes as a way to begin restoring the neighborhood’s tree canopy. The program has proven so popular and successful it has become an annual service.
Requests are taken on a first-come first served basis in late summer, and the trees are delivered in October or November: the optimum time to establish young trees. Residents who are able bodied are given planting instructions and asked to plant the trees themselves. MWCA members and other volunteers assist those residents who need help.
Each spring and fall, MWCA organizes a volunteer effort to pick up litter along neighborhood streets. When unsightly litter is removed and recycled, the neighborhood offers a cleaner, more attractive, and healthier environment. This, in turn, boosts neighborhood pride, protects homeowners’ investment in their property, and makes Magnolia Woods a more attractive destination for home buyers.
