Live@Lunch, North Battlefords business improvement district's launch event, had Central Park rocking with live entertainment Wednesday over the noon hour.
Well known local musician Bruin Eberle and friends served up music that had the children dancing and clapping and everyone enjoying lunch and a visit in the park.
The business improvement district, known as Downtown North Battleford, is the latest initiative to improve the city's inner business core.
Executive Director Lisa McEachern began work with the organization July 2 and she says the first order of business was physical cleanup of the downtown core. She says two Downtown North Battleford employees have been scouring 100th Street and worked doggedly to have Central Park in tiptop shape for the kickoff.
A stroll down 100th Street Wednesday revealed a much cleaner environment, although two castoff hotdog buns and other trash at the entrance to a vacant business building indicates those efforts need to be ongoing.
Several downtown business owners were in the spirit of the event, setting up sidewalk sales and advertising specials.
The event itself drew enough interest to show how a downtown should be, full of people and activity.
I confess, I seldom go downtown, even though I work only a few blocks away. I often walk on my lunch hour, but have been avoiding downtown for a couple of years. I found encountering the "interesting" people who loiter there took away from the head clearing purpose of the exercise.
But, as McEachern herself says, the most effective way to discourage the loiterers is to fill the downtown with people. So, I'll give walking downtown another chance, keeping my eye out for the rest of you while I'm at it.
The Downtown North Battleford organization is one all citizens of the Battlefords should get behind. The key to making the downtown a vibrant and attractive place is people. It was heartening to see so many out in support of its first event and getting behind other initiatives can only be good for the community.
Obviously the problems are more complex and deeply rooted than what cleaning up some garbage and hosting a "feel good" event in the park can address, but if we look at what has been accomplished in places like the Broadway area of Saskatoon we can dare to dream along with Downtown North Battleford.
