The Rotary Fountain Square in downtown Ironton will soon sparkle — transformed into a winter wonderland of 5,000 twinkling white lights — thanks in part to the efforts of Ironton aLive, the community’s newest civic organization.

Our Lady of Bellefonte Hospital’s community initiative program donated the funds to purchase the Christmas decorations. Members of Ironton aLive and other organizations decorated the area Monday. The remaining lights will be used on the community Christmas tree that will be raised and decorated this week, just in time for Monday’s holiday parade.

Ironton aLive is a recently formed non-profit organization whose mission is to support city businesses and grow the community.

“The idea is we are trying to bring Ironton alive,” Carol Allen, president of the new organization, said. “This is a way to bring attention to the fact we want to make Ironton more vital and support the business community throughout the entire city.”

The idea for the organization began to take shape in 2011. The first meeting was in April and the corporation papers were received in October.

The group is made up of volunteers from a variety of walks of life including local government, the chamber of commerce, the convention and visitors bureau, economic development, downtown revitalization leaders, civic organizations, the travel and tourism industry and the businesses community.

The fountain work is just a way to complement the work done by the Ironton Rotary to revitalize the park and make the whole area around the tree really shine, Allen said.

The group is also working hard to promote Small Business Saturday and encourage people to shop locally.

“We want everyone to shop downtown this weekend and support our local businesses,” Allen said, adding that the push is to get more people to start thinking proactively. “The more people working on this, the more likely we are to have success.”

One possible focus of future projects will be to enhance the Farmers Market in downtown so that it could one day include more than produce such as flowers and baked goods.