New initiative aims at ‘Making Marion Marvelous’

New initiative aims at ‘Making Marion Marvelous’

Tacker launches cleanup effort

www.theeveningtimes.com

A new initiative has launched to make Marion, Arkansas an even better place to live, work and play. The initiative known as “Making Marion Marvelous” aims to energize the community to enhance the city of Marion. It is the brainchild of Marion resident Jeff Tacker of Tacker’s Shake Shack.

Tacker partnered with Pastor Aaron Doan of Restoration Life Church in this initial event. Tacker’s Shake Shack and Restoration Life are neighbors both just off Oak Street.

“Change should always start within – and nearby,” says Tacker. “We can complain or we can choose to do something positive for our community. I want to do something positive and I reached out to Pastor Aaron asking their church to join me – and they did.

They grasped the heart of this initiative.”

Pastor Doan encouraged his congregation to join in the first effort and the group started by picking up trash on Oak, Military, Block and Pine streets.

“If we want to see positive change in our community, there’s no better place to start than right where we’re at.” says Doan. “We look forward to partnering with Jeff as we fulfill a common vision to see Marion full of life and beauty. We love our town!” The group met at 9 a.m.

on Saturday to walk the surrounding streets picking up trash. After they completed the block, said a prayer and disposed of the trash bags, the group enjoyed drinks and ice cream at the Shake Shack.

“I love the shirts the church members wore,” states Tacker. “The shirts read, ‘I Get to Serve’ and they did with glad hearts.

There’s nothing glorious in picking up trash – but when I think of the places I’ve been and seen children living and eating off trash dumps – I realize how blessed I am. I should take better care of the place where I live. Trash sometimes just blows around our city. I want to do better.”

Making Marion Marvelous is a local, grass root movement that aims to work with existing organizations, (i.e. churches/ youth groups, Master Gardeners/4-H club, etc) to improve the appearance of our city, to increase the number of volunteers in our city and to impact the community by building stronger relationships. A secondary goal is to network with businesses to fund and provide resources to meet our initiatives.

For more information about Making Marion Marvelous and how you and/or your group can be involved, visit www.shakemarion. com/events/mmm.

From there you can contact Tacker via the contact page.

Special to the Evening Times