We were watering plants at the Alabama Kinnebrew park last weekend when two of our local young men rode up on their bicycles and asked if they could help. DeVante and Ty are in the fifth and third grade respectively at Homer Elementary School and always seem to show up when there is something going on at the park. Ah, the freedom of being young with a bicycle to set off and explore! When asked why they were there, they replied that they like to help do things in town. Then and there I officially named them members of ‘Junior Main Street’, the group that Main Street Homer’s Executive Director Amri Douglas has formed at Homer High School. When told of their new membership status they asked, “what do we have to do?” I told them that they were already doing it, that is caring about and volunteering in their community. That’s all we must do to keep our community going, care about it and do something to keep it going and make it better. Just like we must provide upkeep to our automobiles, houses, and ourselves, we must do the same for our community. Our town is our heart and apathy is its cardiovascular disease.
If you want to help fight apathy in our town, like DeVante and Ty are doing, this weekend provides the perfect opportunity to volunteer and make a difference during Love the Boot week from April 20 – 28. The “boot” is the State of Louisiana and Love the Boot week is an annual event that focuses on state and local litter clean up and beautification. The Town of Homer Street Crew does a great job keeping the downtown Homer square and town streets clean as they are on site early picking up trash and leaves. The Claiborne Parish Sherriff Department litter clean-up crew does the same for our Parish, cleaning up the rural areas. Both groups need our help as litter clean-up is like painting the Golden Gate Bridge, as soon as you are finished, it’s time to start over again. As an example of this, my wife and I walk around our neighborhood and every time we can fill up a grocery sack with litter mostly thrown from vehicles. It’s a never-ending cycle!
If you want to participate and help clean up Homer, meet at the Alabama Kinnebrew Park at 8:00 am Saturday, 4/20 and you can volunteer and be a part of the fight against apathy. We’ll canvas parts of Homer picking up trash, and then meet back at the AK Park for hot dogs and fellowship. Come out and be a part of the solution!
The Town of Homer and Main Street Homer are proud to sponsor volunteer events like Love the Boot Week. MSH cannot function and sponsor events like these, or continue to revitalize Homer through economic development, historic and cultural preservation, and advancement of the arts without the financial assistance from the TOH and from donations from apathy fighting citizens like yourselves. From April 23 – May 7 th is the Community Foundation of North Louisiana Give for Good week, our main fundraising campaign of the year with our goal to raise funds to help complete three reconstruction
projects in downtown Homer. Make plans now to Give for the Good of Homer and help fight apathy and make our heart strong and healthy. DeVante and Ty say, “see you Saturday!”