Zelienople keeps proving itself as a community
Zelienople keeps proving itself to be a tight-knit community of people who will help one another when a fire strikes a business and apartment and also plan holiday festivities that bring people together.
The fire on March 30 affected apartments and two businesses on Main Street, Flowers by M.E. and Stylin’ With Sherrie, and was a blow because of the prominence of its location and the number of lives it affected in a town made up of only about 4,000 people. The business owners are going to have to rebuild, and so are the people who live in the apartments where the fire started.
But the community came to help. Sherrie Davis, of Stylin’ With Sherrie, said the community support had been overwhelming in the days after the fire, when a number of nearby salons offered to host her so she can continue her practice.
Many neighbors of the building hit by the fire said it was sad to see a longtime mainstay of Zelienople in a ravaged state. Some offered help to the people in the building, the volunteer firefighters and the tenant of the apartment. A GoFundMe was started shortly after the blaze.
On Saturday, the streets of Zelienople were once again hopping, but for a more positive reason. The borough was the place to be for Easter events, with English Lutheran Church hosting Breakfast with the Bunny, the Model Train Club of Zelienople opening its doors for a special display and Zelienople Community Park hosting a rather large Easter egg hunt.
There are many Easter activities to attend in Butler County, but seeing that Zelienople had three in one day is particularly impressive, once again because the community is on the small side.
But maybe that’s what makes the town so active — people are making their own community in Zelienople rather than waiting for it to come to them. And that’s commendable.
— ET
