Community members come together to take part in 3rd annual Paint a Bus event

"I'm getting a lot of new faces, a lot of new families, people that live here that didn't even know that this was going on," said mural artist John Donato.

Painters of all ages young and old let their inner creativity shine as they spent Saturday afternoon painting and creating works of art on watermelon busses for the third annual paint a bus event in Laurel.

"It was started as part of the re imagine laurel movement so it is just to revitalize the downtown area and the outlining areas as far as recreation, economy, working waterways, everything that laurel has that is precious," said Donato.

After deciding that he wanted to be a part of the mission to revitalize the town, Donato thought the best way to capture people's attention and draw them to area, were watermelon busses, with artwork that shows the heart of Sussex County.

"Since the watermelon bus is something that is very visible in Laurel, every summer we see hundreds of these driving around, Laurel is sort of known for that so we thought that if we really want to celebrate these things that were talking about and what we're planning on doing in the community, why don't we put them on the buses," said Donato.

Each year event organizers focus on one main theme to stick with when painting these busses. The first year focused on the history of the town the following year was agriculture. And this go around they're focusing on waterways.

"This year we're doing about the working waterways and the sea grant and how we're keeping healthy waterways everything from the Atlantic all the way into the Chesapeake to the broad Creek and how that's all tied together," said Donato.

And with the mix of bright colors and life painted on these buses, they're sure to be the talk of the town.

"Maybe they're from out of state market travelers and they say boy that's kind of neat, what are all these things all about? And that will lead them to trying to learn a little bit more about our community and events  and eventually stop in our community and visit our restaurants and see our parks and everything else, that's how it all ties together," said Mayor of Laurel John Shwed.

Event organizers say they now have a total of 5 painted buses that they've acquired over the past three years.