In spite of the rain that misted on their heads all morning long, the roughly 250 people who fanned out across Ironton Saturday morning were folks on a mission: Making Ironton a prettier place to live.

The annual Ironton Volunteer Day brought together a number of groups and individuals who took up brooms and shovels to clean, plant and spruce up the city's downtown.

Organizer Randy Lilly said he was pleased with the turnout.

"Obviously, city pride is alive and well in the City of Ironton, for that many people to come out and help," Lilly said. "And I've never had quite that many kids come out. I think we had a hundred or so kids from the high school."

Frankie Artis, 15, and Mark Crank, 18, were among the Ironton High School students who volunteered their day. Both Artis and Crank said this was their first experience with the annual Volunteer Day effort.

"We just wanted to help out," Artis said.

This was the first year the newly-formed Moose Lodge Teen Club took part in the Volunteer Day.

"We've been involved in a lot of different community service projects in the last year and we try to get the kids involved in different things," explained teen club advisor Stacey Brown. "We had a canned food drive during the holidays. We saw this as an opportunity for the kids to get involved in something good."

Fourteen-year-old Paige Brown said she didn't even mind the weed-pulling as she lined up with other club members to yank green eyesores from a crevice in a building on South Third Street.

"Personally, I think this is fun," Paige Brown said.

By midday, new plants and even some new trees were planted in various places, trash was collected and the layer of post-winter grit whisked away.

"The effort was outstanding," Lilly said. " It rained but people stayed and continued working. We got a lot done in three hours."