Pay It Forward seeks to Clean Up Corning

The local Pay It Forward group of volunteers have been making progress improving the looks of downtown Corning.

On Saturday, the volunteers are hoping to do even more as they carryout Clean Up Corning Day.

In just more than one year, the group of community-minded folks, including business owners and employees, individuals, community club members and even the city's mayor have taken it upon themselves to give a jump-start to the historic section of town.

Maybe they're trying to resurrect old main street back to its advertised slogan of 1907, "Clean Town."

For years, several buildings in historic downtown have remained vacant, suffered from a lack of maintenance, empty shop windows filled with cobwebs and dust.

Due to the efforts of Pay It Forward, that is changing.

Lisa Rodriguez, of Edward Jones Investments, who is spearheading the improvement group, likes to look at the positive side of things, noting that not all of downtown is in disrepair.

She notes that much of historic downtown is occupied by businesses such as beauty shops, real estate offices, an ice cream shop, clothing store, a barber shop, banks, Mexican stores, video rental, locksmith shop, an investment office, insurance office, clothing store, meat market and a women's gym.

Between Hoag Street and Third Avenue, there are approximately 40 store fronts, of which about 28 are occupied.

Pay It Forward volunteers have worked steadily to paint several of those occupied and vacant buildings and store fronts, a number of vacant storefront windows now feature themed displays such as "Tony's Tavern" and "Gary's Gift Shop," and "Bonnie's Book Store."

Pay It Forward is hoping to be inundated with volunteers this Saturday who care about the looks and reputation of their community as much as they do.

"Once a month we have a workday and do a project such as Saturday's clean up," said Councilman Dave Linnet, who is a Pay It Forward volunteer.

Clean Up Corning volunteers are asked to meet at 9 a.m. at Linnet Tires, 1090 Highway 99W.

The goal is to pick up trash along the historic highway that runs from Edith Avenue south to the intersection at South Avenue and Highway 99W.

Pay It Forward Chairwoman Lisa Rodriguez said gloves and trash bags will be provided, but she advises people to bring their own gloves if they prefer.