Main Street News: January 23rd

The Main Street Program’s Annual meeting last Wednesday, January 18th, was a time to recognize our great volunteers and members. They each do what they can. They do so because they want to. It’s not their ‘job’ and certainly no one pays them. They do it because they know they should. Although we cannot ever begin to thank each and every one of them properly, but I do want to take time to recognize our award winners for 2016. Our Business of the Year award goes to a business that Barnesville would be lost without. In the last year, they have made quite a few improvements and never quit to provide the best for our community. They have also sponsored several Main Street events and help us out whenever we need. This year’s business of the year is Barnesville Grocery. Our Board member of the year goes to Aubree Martinez. Aubree is always jumping in to help and does it with a smile on her face. The Committee Member of the Year award goes to a Lindsay Bontjes. Lindsay has been on the Promotions Committee for too many years to count! She has been such a great asset and also serves with a smile! Our last award for the year goes to our volunteer of the year. This is always the hardest to award. We have so many great volunteers who put in so many hours. This year I made it easy. I totaled up all the volunteer hours in 2016. We had a total of 746 hours! What is even more shocking is the fact that if you times that by the national average worth of a single volunteer hour of $23.07, you would find that we totaled $17,210.22 worth of volunteering last year alone. This year that award goes to the person with the most volunteer hours, Pete Larson. Pete not only serves on the Main Street Board of Directors, but he is also on the Showcase Committee and volunteers his summer weekends to water the flowers on Front Street. Special thanks go out to each of them for their endless dedication as they give of their time and talents to be Barnesville’s Main Street Program!

At our meeting, we also were excited to unveil our new logo that has been in the works for a quite a while! Watch for it in our upcoming Main Street publications!