The city's Main Street hanging flower basket program is a go.

Lorne Metropolit, the owner and operator of Yukon Gardens, said today he has received word from the city giving him the go-ahead to start preparing for the 48 hanging baskets which will line Main Street this summer.

'I got a call from the city yesterday,' he said. 'It's official: I can make the baskets.'

Metropolit said it will likely be about one month before the colourful, viney flowers will be ready for their big pots.

'They will probably be put up around the beginning of June,' he said.

Metropolit is donating half of the flowers for the program.

The city's hanging basket program was cancelled earlier this year after the parks department budget was slashed by $120,000 in the 2007 budget.

The cost of running the program, Parks and Recreation Department manager Linda Rapp said earlier this year, is about $6,000 a summer in maintenance and $1,200 for the flowers.

The baskets themselves, she said, cost $6,000.

Parks supervisor Doug Hnatiuk said in April the city received a call from a company willing to make and donate the baskets.

Hnatiuk said he wasn't able to say which company made the offer.

June Hampton is a Whitehorse resident who has been spearheading a fundraiser for the basket program. She said this morning a donation which let organizers achieve their $7,000 goal was reached Wednesday.

'We've got it all,' she said. 'I feel pretty good.

'The kudos really go to the residents of Whitehorse they really came through,' she said.

'Money came from citizens and businesses.'

Hampton said donations varied from $20 to $1,000, and there was a lot of effort to get the fundraiser to reach its goal.

'Chris Sorg went out and rounded up the last bit of money for us; I was just swamped.' Sorg owns several Main Street businesses, including Mac's Fireweed book store and Paradise Alley.

Hampton said the money raised will be used to pay for the maintenance of the program and half the cost of the flowers.

She said as far as she knows, a donation commitment of the $6,000 worth of baskets themselves is still a mystery.

Rapp said she has been instructed to work on a multi-party press release on the program.

She said she's pleased to see the initiative go forward but cautioned for next year; there's still no money in the budget for the basket program.

City manager Dennis Shewfelt said while it looks like the hanging basket program is going ahead this year, he isn't sure about 2008.

'The money is not in the budget,' he said.

'What happens next year is a question I've asked. Is the community prepared to come out and support it again?'

Rapp said she isn't sure if the community would come out to fundraise for the program next year.

'It's year-by-year at this point,' she said.