The Maben Home and Garden Club chooses an outstanding home and lawn each month during the growing season to receive the Yard of the Month. This month, July, the club is giving the recognition to the town of Maben because of the generosity of her merchants and citizens in dressing up the main streets with new American flags in time for the Fourth of July. The brand new flags were unfurled at every street light pole on Highway 15 and Second Avenue, which comprise the main business district of Maben. For the last few years the supply of American flags that were displayed on Highway 15 in Maben have been damaged by weather and become unusable. These former flags had been procured by Dottie Dewberry of Maben through a military source. Knowing that the flags were a sign of the patriotic spirit of Maben, a local citizen took up the challenge of collecting money to purchase new flags. Roy Holland of Maben went around to merchants in the area and collected $730 to purchase the 50 flags that can be seen around Maben during patriotic holidays. Wayne Yeatman, the Maben fire chief, personally installed the brackets for the new flags on every street light pole in the center part of Maben. The Maben Fire Department is in charge of putting out the flags and taking care of them between holidays. The Maben Home and Garden Club honors these two individuals and all the folks who contributed money by naming this project the Yard of the Month for July. Downtown Maben is also decorated by four large planter boxes that have been repaired by the Garden Club and are planted with colorful nandinas, hot pink vincas and purple potato vines this summer. These boxes were originally placed around the main street years ago by another concerned citizen, Dewberry, who went around town and collected the money to build the original boxes. She placed brass plaques on each box with the names of the donors and the loved ones who are being memorialized. However, after many years of weathering the wood had deteriorated, and so the Maben Garden Club took up the project to refurbish the boxes and took on the job of replacing plants each year. There are actually four more boxes that need refurbishing, but have not been repaired because the project is quite expensive; they need to have the rotting wood replaced with treated wood and be repainted to match the renovated boxes. The club also has the job of keeping the plants in the boxes watered during the hot Mississippi summers. Merchants near the planters do some of the watering, but volunteers are needed to supplement the watering when the weather is extremely hot. In addition to the Garden Club planter boxes, other businesses on "main" street also have pots of flowers or hanging ferns that add so much to the attractive appearance of the town. The Maben Home and Garden Cub appreciates the efforts of its people to help beautify our whole town.
