Lions Champion uptown Marlin curb appeal

You hear about them every so often: the big design projects in downtown - overall building rehabilitation, façade improvements, new street lights and sidewalks, public spaces for events and so on. Creating curb appeal means looking at our community at eye level and from the perspective of the tourist, visitor or shopper. John Armstrong does that, starting from the ground up.

John Armstrong is a Lion. He wants to inspire and educate people to take action every day to improve and beautify our community. Envision a city where streets are swept and freshly painted, where every area is a clean, green and beautiful place to live. Envision a community with little tolerance for litter, clutter and the negative footprint of trash in our global landscape.

As a Marlin Lions Club Project Chair, John Armstrong is leading local volunteers supported by corporate partners, municipalities, elected officials, and individuals blaze a trail of beauty and cleanliness through Uptown Marlin. “Our collective actions champion a transformation,” says John Champion. “Everything we do is for an environmentally healthy, socially connected, and economically sound community. A few hours’ work will transform our uptown streets and spaces into beautiful places.”

Marlin Lions Club volunteers David Lawson, Sheila Lawson, Anthony Roppolo, Douglas Langston, and Dr. Charlotte Langston arrived early on October 17, 2020 and readied to clean and paint yellow the curb around the Falls County Courthouse. To prepare the curb for the paint application, they first removed any organic material near the curb, scraped off any existing loose paint, and cleaned any oil spills. Any debris and loose material left was swept and disposed of properly. Yellow paint then was applied to the vertical and horizontal face of the curb with a roller or brush. This was a highly successful cooperative effort and the resultant yellow curb was impressively neat and befitting the county courthouse.

This author was reminded of an instructor of French on how to best accomplish anything, “Inch by inch, it is a cinch; yard by yard, it is hard.” And so, Lions press on, inch by inch.

The next Paint the Curb Day is Saturday, November 7, 2020, beginning at 8:00 a.m. Anyone wanting to join this effort is invited to contact Lion John Armstrong at (214) 229-6674. Won’t you paint downtown curbs with us? Meet on Live Oak Street in front of the Citizens State Bank.