Some colour is coming to downtown Sturgeon Falls shortly.
West Nipissing Pride, which officially launched earlier this month, will be painting a rainbow on a crosswalk to celebrate Pride Month in early June.
“One of the big things that we wanted to do with the pride organization this year is to get out,” Jeremy Seguin, a member of the pride committee, said. “Whether that be a parade, a crosswalk, or flag raising, we wanted to do projects that are out there and give a metropolitan feel to the municipality. The one everyone wanted to do was the crosswalk.”
“We got the okay from council to put up the flags on King Street, and then we thought that the little crosswalk between Caisse Populaire and the pharmacy would be fantastic, only to find out it isn’t zoned as a crosswalk but is a parking spot,” he continued. “I brought up our busiest corner, which is King and William Street, and everyone liked that idea. Instead of having one little strip, we would have a corner dedicated to us.”
According to Mayor Joanne Savage, there is no cost to the municipality and will be beneficial to the community.
“We are fortunate to have a local business that is contributing the financial expenditures for the project,” she explained. “It’s going to beautify the downtown and it’s going to be vibrant. The whole objective is to promote inclusiveness. As a municipality and a leader of the municipality, the most valuable resources are our people and here’s an opportunity to recognize individuals within our community.”
“The support is overwhelming, even to a point where we were told we can do the whole municipality, block by block if we wanted to,” Seguin said. “That’s not the case as the paint and equipment are still fairly expensive.”
“All members of council endorsed this at 100 per cent, with no objections,” Savage said. “We will have a local artist that’s going to do the actual painting. It’s going to be exciting to see the transformation and the colours that will be contributing to the beautification that is being done in our community.”
Seguin says the actual date for the crosswalk to be painted has yet to be set in stone.
“We still have a date to be determined with the municipality because we will have to close down that section for a 24 hour period,” he explained. “Our local artist will have to distance themselves so they won’t be able to do the job as quickly as you would usually be able to do.”
“We’re looking at beautifying our municipality with the crosswalk,” Seguin added.