File photo Our Town Inc. will once again hand out materials for the community to design scarecrows that will be placed alongside Elkins city streets this fall. Our Town volunteer Bobbi Trimboli, above, stands between a pair of scarecrows collected for a past event.

ELKINS — Scarecrows will once again be present alongside downtown Elkins city streets this fall as Our Town Inc. has decided to bring back the popular community project after a one-year hiatus.

Prior to last fall, the scarecrows had adorned downtown streets in the heart of Elkins for years, but the organization wanted to try a different approach in 2024, and instead distributed wooden “leaves” for the community to decorate.

Our Town Inc. volunteer Pricilla Gay said people in the community really enjoyed the scarecrows, and that was one of the reasons the organization decided to bring them back.

“A lot of people really like seeing and decorating the scarecrows,” Gay told The Inter-Mountain this week. “We wanted to try something different last year and had good participation with the leaves. But we try to give the people what they want, and many of them requested we bring the scarecrows back.”

Gay said the scarecrows will be a bit different compared to what the public has taken home and decorated in the past.

“The scarecrows will have a new design this year,” Gay said. “They are designed in the same manner as last year’s elves at Christmas time. So instead of people getting sticks, they will actually be getting a cutout that they can take home and design.

“What people did with the elves last year was fantastic, and we expect that we will see some really great scarecrows in this new form.”

Those wishing to design scarecrows can pick up materials to do so at the Dann Building on the corner of Third Street and Davis Avenue, across from the Elkins Sewing Center, on Saturday, Aug. 16 from noon to 2 p.m.

The scarecrows will need to be returned to the same location on Aug. 30, from noon to 2 p.m. The scarecrows are scheduled to be placed downtown on Sept. 6, where they will remain until after the Mountain State Forest Festival on Oct. 11.

“We are planning to hand out around 50 scarecrows for people to decorate,” Gay said. “We have to get the Christmas decorations up by Nov. 1, so we will be taking the scarecrows down in mid-October.”

For more information, visit Our Town’s Facebook Page or go to the organization’s website at ourtownelkins.com.