Badin Duplex, Henderson Street

Every day, spring through fall, a band of dedicated volunteers waters the flower pots that line the pavement in Badin’s downtown. Every fall, on a special workday before the Best of Badin Festival, this small army clips shrubbery, spreads pine straw and plants mums around the Town Hall, the Library and the Museum.

Badin is that kind of community where residents pitch in to make the town beautiful. But a lot of those volunteers are aging and their younger replacements lead busy lives filled with work and family.

Better Badin, the organization that pioneered this community work force, finds it increasingly difficult to recruit the Flower Pot Brigade,  the Festival work crew, or volunteers to run the Best of Badin Festival.

“Better Badin was started to bring the community together,” says Elvin Fisher, former Badin School Principal and former Better Badin president. “The Festival was initiated to unite us even more, to give us something to be proud of.”

Today, with a $250,000 grant from the Alcoa Foundation, east and west Badin are sprucing up with new trees. Renovation is underway on the facades of businesses along Falls Road. But without  volunteers to keep the flowers watered and the shrubbery trimmed, and without residents to keep their own neighborhoods tidy, all the grant money and Better Badin committees dedicated to helping Badin may fail to make this unique town what it has the potential to be.

Volunteerism, community spirit and community pride was what Badin had in its past, what it still has now and what it needs to nurture for its future.