Featuring four brightly colored native flowers, Together We Bloom is an 11-foot-tall sculpture on the grounds of the Kroc Center at the corner of Pearl Avenue and Broad Street.
“All of the flowers are actually really small. I wanted to blow them up because in a community, we’re all small, but together we make something a lot bigger,” said Atlanta-area metal artist Huelani Mei at a March 24 ribbon cutting ceremony.
Mei combined her artistic design with blacksmithing techniques to create the piece. She works with a structural engineer when making pieces to ensure their safety and stability.
“I want people to find peace and happiness with my sculpture,” she said.
Flowers in the sculpture include geranium, butterfly milkweed and blue-eyed grass.
Derek Dugan, development director for the Salvation Army of Augusta, said the artwork fits into the vision of Joan Kroc, who left $1.8 billion to the Salvation Army for the creation of Kroc Centers nationwide.
Whereas the Salvation Army offered people (especially among the lower classes in England when William Booth founded it in 1865), a pathway to God and faith, Joan Kroc, the heiress to the McDonald’s fortune, wanted to remove barriers to recreation, education and art, Dugan said.
The sculpture is one piece of a project taking place on the Kroc Center grounds. In December 2025, the Salvation Army broke ground on Ann Boardman Park. Boardman was a longtime Salvation Army board member.
When completed, the park will have a full athletic turf soccer field, pickleball courts, walking track, an adaptive playground and art trail.
Georgia Rehabilitation Institute sponsored the project. Acting as the Public Art Agency for the City of Augusta, The Greater Augusta Arts Council worked with the artist, GRI and Salvation Army to facilitate the project.
