Gold Medal - Let's make our village more beautiful

In 1993 Eppelsheim for the first time - together with three other towns - qualified for the federal competition "Let's make our village more beautiful". It meant that many years of the community's efforts were finally appreciated. Since 1961 the village has taken part in this competition and has been quite successful. Among the many awards Eppelsheim received 4 first places of the district, a first as well as several second and third places of the next bigger administrative district and three silver and two bronze medals from the state (Rhineland-Palatinate). We also received honorary mention from the former Prime Minister of Rhineland-Palatinate, Dr Wagner.

In 1993, 47 towns altogether from 12 federal states took part in the final competition. Under the chairwomanship of the President of the 'German Gardening Society 1882', Countess Bernadotte, the assessment committee visited Eppelsheim on 9th September 1993.

In 2003, after a ten-year’s mandatory break, Eppelsheim returned to the competition for the most attractive town and finished second in the main class in Rhineland-Palatinate. In addition, Eppelsheim received the special award for “Exemplary Ecological Achievements”.

In the 22nd national competition Eppelsheim came in first on the local and district levels in the special class and won a gold medal on the state level (Rhineland-Palatinate). Along with 33 other communes Eppelsheim again qualified for the national competition in 2007. During the “Green Week 2008” 76 citizens of Eppelsheim attended the awards ceremony at the ICC Berlin where the silver medal was presented to Eppelsheim by the Federal Minister of Agriculture Horst Seehofer.

It was a special honour for the mayor Ute Klenk-Kaufmann and her deputy Rainer Carl when they were invited to a reception in Bellevue Palace by the patron of the competition, the Federal President Dr. Horst Köhler.

After a seven-year’s break Eppelsheim took part again in the nationwide competition "Our village has a future" and finished first both on the district and regional levels in the special class. This success was even crowned by a gold medal on the state level (Rhineland-Palatinate). In addition Eppelsheim was awarded the special prizes for exemplary urban development in November 2015 and for ecological achievements in July 2016. Thus Eppelsheim together with 33 other villages from all over Germany qualified for the national competition and was awarded a Bronze Medal by the federal commission on July 7th , 2017.

In January 2017 a delegation of 50 citizens travelled to Berlin to collect the medal at the village festival as part of "The Green Week”. We are now triple Federal Winner.