Thursday, January 29, 2015
From Main Street Corydon:
If you love Corydon and would like to participate in its beautification, please join us on the last Saturday of the month.
January 31: First Umuganda Corydon
9:00 am: kick off at Kent Java
Noon: Wrap up celebration at Yo Mama's Pizza
We are concentrating our efforts on Chestnut Street this month.
We are asking each building owner to wash the inside and outside of their store windows, starting at 9:00 am on Saturday, January 31. We will then hang a high-quality poster in storefronts that are either empty or without window displays.
Each poster will have a positive message about Downtown Corydon, and will reflect that Corydon is a place of welcome, excellence and energy.
Background:
Last year, a friend visited Rwanda and when he returned, the thing he talked about the most was "Umuganda." It is the last Saturday of the month. A day dedicated to working together to benefit the community. Basically, it goes like this: the whole village gathers at 9:00 am and works for three hours on a project agreed to the month before. Then, at noon, everyone comes together to discuss and to decide what the project should be the next month.
Recently a friend asked me, "What is Main Street Corydon all about?" and I talked about our mission to make Corydon a place of welcome, excellence and energy. He said, "I will do whatever you need," and he gave me this example, "My landscaping at my house is beautiful because it reflects my family. But, Corydon reflects me too ... and right now the reflection is not what it should be."
From that discussion, the idea of a day of community service was birthed. Like the original Umuganda, it will be the last Saturday of each month, 9:00 am to noon.
What we need:
Citizens who are willing to come together as a community, to serve.
A wish list from the downtown building owners and business.
Examples of projects:
Putting up posters in empty store fronts, power washing the sidewalks, landscaping (there are small green spaces in Corydon where we can help), cleaning benches and turning them around to be conversational, picking up trash, painting and sprucing up storefronts, washing windows.
Please let us know if you have any ideas for beautification projects, mainstreetcorydon@gmail.com
