The Kosciusko-Attala Parntership was honored for a creative new event at the Mississippi Main Street Association 27th Annual Awards Luncheon last weekend.
The annual awards luncheon honors Main Street directors, board members and volunteers and recognizes the most outstanding downtown development projects from Main Street communities in Mississippi.
Main Street director G.G. Holmes was honored after spearheading “A Step Back in Time” last year.
“Our Main Street tells us who we are, who we were and how the past shaped us; it is the place of shared memories,” Holmes said. “On a muggy night in September 2015, our community took a step back in time to relive the good old days of the 19th century.”
Approximately 150 people attended the event from senior citizens to school children with eager minds that soaked up the history.
“The goal of Main Street was to present our history to the Kosciusko community in a narrative form, not only to enlighten but to entertain, to build community rapport as well as showcase the beauty of our historic courthouse and court square,” Holmes added.
Holmes points to the many volunteers for the success of the program.
“I want to thank the individuals and businesses that participated. If we didn’t have them, we wouldn’t have had ‘A Step Back in Time,’” Holmes stated. “Jewette Battles did all the research and I basically just did what she told me to do. We gave the volunteers a script and they just ran with it.”
Since 1993, Mississippi Main Street Association has generated nearly $4.9 billion in private and public investment (including nearly $1.2 billion in public investment).
In 2015, Mississippi Main Street cities generated 178 net new businesses, 49 business expansions to existing businesses, 1,695 net new jobs, 61 facade rehabilitations and 225 downtown residential units. More than 47,377 volunteer hours were recorded.
MMSA currently has 52 active Main Street cities throughout the state, five Downtown Network members and numerous Association and Allied professional members.
MMSA is a program of the Mississippi Development Authority and a member of the National Main Street Center, Inc., a non-profit subsidiary of the National Trust for Historic Preservation.
For the past 35 years, the Main Street Four Point Approach® has been used successfully in more than 1,600 neighborhoods and communities across the nation, rural and urban, that share both a commitment to place and to build competitive communities through preservation-based economic development.
