Members of the Bladenboro Veterans were joined by members of Boost the Boro for a couple of hours on Saturday morning to continue working on a joint initiative of what is referred to as the Downtown Corner project.
According to Don White, President of Boost the Boro, “This is an ongoing effort that is being completed and financed between various parties, including the Bladenboro Veterans, Woodmen Life and Boost the Boro, and one we hope will be contagious as to what can be accomplished in our downtown area when multiple parties work together on a common goal.
“The corner lot project is a work in progress and has such high visibility for our town. North Carolina Department of Commerce reports that over 8,000 cars currently travel by this site each day and our organization felt it was vital to our town to clean it up and give it a new face. When we took this idea to the Town Board, they were very open to this sort of initiative. We were very pleased when the Veterans expressed an interest to both the Town and our organization to relocate their memorial from what was once the National Guard Armory to the downtown area and to make it the centerpiece of the project.
“Mr. Bobby Ludlum and the members of the local Veterans are a great bunch of guys and it’s obvious they enjoy being around each other. They have worked on other projects together in the past, one being at the Bladenboro Historical Society and they did the bulk of the heavy lifting in getting their memorial to the site and situated where it is. We were pleased that Bobby reached out to us to see if there might be a few of us in town over the holiday weekend to lend a hand and a ‘back’ for a few hours on Saturday morning.
“While the property is legally owned by the Town of Bladenboro, it’s really sort of been adopted by us all,” said White. “It’s not unusual to be driving by and see someone from the Town’s Maintenance or a member from Boost the Boro or from the Veterans doing something to keep it maintained.
“We are already working on a phase II plan for the corner project and will be taking some proposals to the Town Board after Beast Fest this year, which will be held on October 26-27 and promises to be the best in our 12 year history.
“If members of the community have ideas they would like to present to our membership we are always looking for ways to ‘Boost the Boro.’
“In the meantime, we would encourage the merchants and citizens to look around at their properties and see what they might do to make it look its best. There are several properties that need to be addressed in our town, but little improvements can mean so much as well.”
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