Charlie Main, a Virden retiree, is the kind of citizen who looks around and asks himself, “What can I do to make things better?” and then goes about doing it.
Recently, as he went past the Youth for Christ Hideout on Seventh Ave. in Virden, he noticed the lot was overgrown with weeds and shrubs and just looked unkempt. So he invited the youth members who use the Hideout for recreation to join him for a pruning and tidying blitz.
On July 31, Main and four young people plus the coordinator of the centre, Kyle Martens, did something that may seem pretty ordinary on the surface but that brought the generations together in a project that made a tangible difference.
The team of six spent three hours digging up the overgrowth and removing garbage from the facility, which provides teens in the Virden area with a place to hang out, play games, connect with each other and get help if needed.
Martens said, “I am often busy and I don’t get around to those kinds of maintenance things, so Charlie was a huge help. The youth seemed to enjoy it…. The property looks so much nicer now and I hope that the youth who come will feel like it has made a difference.”
