YOUTH IN MAIN STREET

January 2018 Main Street Matters

Getting young people involved with their community’s Main Street program benefits not only the program with some of the heavy lifting, but
providing an opportunity for community engagement and encouraging youth to enjoy history in their own backyards and beyond. Main Street programs often create partnerships with local schools and offer service learning and community service opportunities to students using heritage resources. These are some of the ways that Main Streets are involving youth in their communities.

Harlingen – Downtown Mosaic Planter Art Project
Submitted by Ed Meza, Former Harlingen Main Street Manager

Harlingen artist Roberta Lee will oversee the Mosaic Planter Art Project created by Harlingen junior high and high school students. The 12 concrete cylinder planters will be turned into works of art by the students and will be used to beautify downtown Harlingen. The students will design each planter, learn the process of drawing, and use different materials such as glass and their own mosaic pieces out of glazed ceramic to install the pieces.

Each planter will be designed with a theme that represents Harlingen and its uniqueness. Themes include flora and fauna, the Arroyo Colorado,
recycling, the cotton industry, the citrus industry, and more. The planters are sponsored by businesses and residents and will be distributed in the downtown area and serve as visual art pieces.

Carthage – Youth Advisory Council
Submitted by Cindy Deloney, Carthage Main Street Manager

The Carthage Main Street Youth Advisory Council (YAC) was formed in April 2016 with 12 members, and in 2017 it is already up to the max of 20
members. Each year this council is tasked with planning an event and a project as well as volunteering for both Carthage Main Street and Panola County Chamber of Commerce events, with their officers also being Junior Chamber Ambassadors. Each member also has to volunteer two hours per semester working in the Carthage Main Street office.

This outstanding group of young people start their year with a full day of training on Main Street, team- building exercises, and a planning session for their year. Their first event, The Homecoming Street Dance, was a huge success and they are building on that event for this year. They have also helped with the renovations at the Esquire Theater downtown and volunteering at the concession stand for both the country music shows and movies held in this historic theater. Their first big project is about to become a reality: a life-size chess board will be added to Anderson Park in our downtown square thanks to their hard work.

The first chair of the YAC, Emily Andrus, was the featured volunteer in the May 2017 issue of Main Street Matters.

These programs are only a couple of great examples of getting youth involved with their Main Street programs. Please log into the online resource library for several additional profiles on youth involvement in the San Marcos and Uvalde Main Street programs.

Uvalde – NJROTC Program
Submitted by Susan Rios, Former Uvalde Main Street Manager

The Uvalde Main Street program primarily reaches out to the Uvalde High School to recruit students as volunteers to help them with needed hours for college applications and to assist in instilling in them a sense of community pride.  The Uvalde High School NJROTC program is the principal school organization that we work with for volunteerism.  The NJROTC program uses the ideals of self-discipline, pride, honor, and awareness when working with students.  Those ideals make for great volunteers. 

Kristine Ruiz, a high school senior and NJROTC cadet, is in charge of the NJROTC program’s volunteers for the 2017-2018 school year.  When asked why she volunteers for the Main Street program activities, she said, “I love volunteering with the Main Street program and I love being involved with the Main Street program.  It helps me be more involved in the community and I love to see the community gather like it does, especially for the movies in the plaza.  It’s amazing to see all the people come out in the spring and summer weather to watch great movies. I hope that even after I graduate from high school, I will still find time to be involved in the community.”

The Uvalde Main Street program is able to host events such as community movie nights, because of young people like Kristine.  Kristine and her fellow students come and help setup the event, run the concession stand, and clean up after the event.  Students have also volunteered to help with other events such as Breakfast with Santa, entertaining during our monthly shopping event (4 Square Friday), and aiding with a recent major beautification and rehabilitation in the downtown area.  Uvalde had a fountain in its downtown plaza for many years.  Students, service clubs, businesses, etc. came out and helped dig out the fountain that was currently a flower bed. The goal is to return the fountain to its former glory and to continue to use volunteers to complete the project and maintain it.  

The Uvalde Main Street’s desire to involve the youth in its programs and to create the next generation of volunteers is done in other facets as well.  One of our most recent efforts to accomplish this was to find a way to share the importance of historic places, the beauty of our city, and the uniqueness of the downtown area with young children, so that they will hopefully grow up to be involved and caring volunteers.  We embarked on what the program felt was an innovative endeavor.  With the financial support of a local family, whose passion is preserving history and teaching children, we were able to design and create the “Coloring at the Crossroads the Uvalde Activity Book”.  Each page of the book features an important place, feature, or historical person who has impacted Uvalde. To date, over 1,600 copies of the activity book have been distributed to children in and around Uvalde. 

NJROTC volunteers youth enjoy performing in our downtown (Sahawe Indian Dancers), working on our fountain project,  working at community night, and working the Breakfast with Santa event. 

San Marcos – Dream Team
Submitted by Samantha Armbruster, Former San Marcos Main Street Manager

The Dream Team is our group of talented, incredible interns but we don't refer to them as interns because they are treated as staff and given complex projects to work on. The Four Point Approach means that we as Main Street staff work on a variety of tasks, therefore these young adults are able to give meaningful input on topics which interest them. Our Dream Team come from various degree backgrounds including: Public Relations, Mass Communications, Advertising and Urban & Regional Planning. In the Fall 2017, our office had ten Dream Team members working on all types of tasks from researching downtown topics for Council to taking the lead on large events to developing social media marketing strategies. They truly do make dreams come true!

Our goal is to transform volunteers into champions that spread the gospel of our downtown and implement our program's strategic plan. By utilizing C.I.V.I.C. (Coffee, Impactful, Visionary, Inclusive, Contagious) culture and an open office space, we aim to tap into their passions to grow our organization from staff driven to community driven. 

Ashley Mergele, our ‘Dreamiest’ Dream Team Member says, “Working for Main Street over the past year has been an incredible experience. Not only has this internship provided me with valuable connections, it has given me a new understanding of what it means to be a community. I have learned that a healthy and thriving downtown not only supports local business but provides a space that all ages can enjoy. Whenever I see people enjoying themselves downtown it makes me happy knowing that the Dream Team has played a huge role in creating that environment. To me downtown will always be the heart of a city; it creates individuality among historic downtowns and is the birthplace of a city’s personality.”