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ELKINS -- In an attempt to offer the public new and fresh activities to take part in, Our Town Inc. has decided to take a different approach when it comes to decorating the downtown city streets this fall.
Instead of distributing scarecrow materials, which Our Town has been doing for the past several years, the organization will be handing out wooden leaves for citizens to take home to decorate this autumn.
After residents put their artistic touches on the cutouts, Our Town will collect the leaves and place them on wooden trees that will be spread across town.
"We will hand out small maple and oak leaves that people can take home and decorate," Our Town President Tammy Dolly told The Inter-Mountain. "We are going to make them six to eight inches, that way we can have more people participate."
Dolly said volunteers from Our Town will paint the wooden trees and have them ready for when the leaves are returned. Our Town will be distributing the leaves on Aug. 27-28 from 4-6 p.m. at the Dann Building on the corner of Davis Avenue and Third Street.
The decorated leaves will be collected at the same location, which is across the street from the Elkins Sewing Center, on Sept. 10-11 from 4-6 p.m.
Our Town took over the scarecrow contest duties from Elkins Main Street in 2021. Main Street and other organizations started the scarecrow contest in 2015.
"We wanted to see what else we could come up with, so we decided to take a break from the scarecrows this year," said Dolly. "We went back to the drawing board and came up with something fresh and different, and decided to do the tree and leaves project this fall. We've done the scarecrows for many years and not everybody loved the scarecrows. Some people will be sad and some will be happy about the change."
The West Virginia Wood Technology Center will once again be donating time and expertise to the project. In the past the WVWTC has cut out wooden flowers used by Our Town during the organization's spring event. The WVWTC will be doing the same for the fall project cutouts.
"Wood Tech has never taken a penny for the work that they do for us," Dolly said. "They will be cutting out every one of the leaves for this project – they are really good to us and we appreciate all the work they do."
For more information on the tree and leaves project, visit Our Town's Facebook page.