"Project Lithonia"

In order to combat its financial woes, community activists in my hometown of Lithonia are apparantly planning a big fundraiser:

Thursday morning on Main Street in Lithonia is as stiflingly still as the muggy June air that barely stirs the American flags draped from the city's light poles.

Many storefronts along either side of the street are vacant. Few cars drive by. In a 30-minute period, exactly three people pass by on the sidewalk.

"It feels like poverty is hovering over the city," said community activist Joyce McKibben, giving a reporter a tour of the town. "This place is a dead zone."

This Independence Day weekend, with a little help, maybe the dead will rise.

McKibben and a group of volunteers are hosting a fund-raiser, Project Lithonia, during which a fish fry, a softball game and an outdoor concert will be used as leverage to try to lift this dolorous little town (population 2,127) in southeast DeKalb County out of its financial and spiritual slough.

Lithonia's woes are too well known.

The town owes about $250,000 to various entities, including the IRS, according to its mayor, who last year was the object of a failed recall. The police force was shut down throughout May because the city couldn't afford to pay insurance on city vehicles, including squad cars.

If any of y'all don't know what Lithonia is like, upon his visit, a good friend of mine best described Lithonia as "countretto"--that is, country and ghetto at the same time.