Main Street Washington wins awards

    A number of Washington businesses and organizations were honored at the Annual Main Street Iowa Awards Ceremony in Des Moines Friday. Main Street cities across the state nominated projects and businesses for awards such as ?Best Marketing Event? and ?Best Business of the Year.? A total of 105 projects were nominated for awards, 32 of which were selected for awards and 11 of which received honorable mention.

    Main Street Washington won awards for two projects it did in 2009: the sidewalk SWEEPs and the Slow Down and Savor Washington promotion. The Washington Free Public Library was recognized as the ?Best New Development? in the state. The Village, located on the west side of the square, was awarded the ?Best Business Success Story.? The late Mary Ann Drain was posthumously given an award for being an ?Outstanding Volunteer.?

    The SWEEPs program won the award for ?Best Image Campaign.? It began shortly after Main Street Washington was created in the spring of 2008. The acronym stands for ?Supporting Washington?s Economic Enhancement Projects,? and there was no project larger in the last few years than the downtown enhancement project. Main Street Washington Executive Director Amy Vetter said her organization came up with the idea to do sweeps to recognize the progress of the project.

    ?We wanted to celebrate the opening of the streets and sidewalks around the square,? said Vetter. ?The very first one was on Marion. We did a ribbon-cutting for that and did one for each of the sidewalks as they were completed. To keep that theme going, we handed out brooms to the businesses that do some type of advancement, whether it?s a rehab, façade improvement or adding new merchandise. We give them a broom and an apron, reminding them to keep Washington clean.?

For more, see our April 19 print edition.