PORT TOWNSEND — The Port Townsend Main Street Program has won an economic vitality award for a communication plan that helped shoppers navigate the city’s major downtown street construction last year.
Representatives of the Port Townsend Main Street Program and officials with the Port Angeles Downtown Association both walked away with awards at a May 16 statewide Main Street Program conference in Vancouver, Wash., said Sarah Hansen, the statewide group’s coordinator.
Mari Mullen, executive director of the Port Townsend Main Street Program, said the program’s communication plan was developed to ease the impact on downtown businesses of last year’s major Taylor Street renovations.
The work lasted from January to June and also included construction along Water Street.
The Main Street Program worked with the city and the engineering firm on the project to design the communication plan, which featured everything from retail promotions and celebrity concierges leading shoppers around downtown.
“It was kind of a multi-faceted marketing campaign,” Mullen said.
The communications plan, called a “Light at the End of the Tunnel,” also involved the Main Street Program informing downtown Port Townsend businesses about construction information via the main street program’s website.
The $3.5 million Taylor Street project shored up sidewalks, repaved the street and moved utility wires on one side of the street underground.
For more information about the Port Townsend Main Street Program, see www.ptmainstreet.org.
PORT ANGELES
The Port Angeles Downtown Association was recognized with an organizational excellence award for its youth volunteer program, the only such program in the state.
The program gives youth ages 10 to 18 the opportunity to plan community events and learn how businesses operate, Hansen said.
“It’s really a great program, and it’s really impressive the way they’ve been able to engage these kids,” Hansen said.
“It was definitely something that was needed and wanted.”
Barb Frederick, PADA executive director, said the youth volunteer program, started in 2011, was the brainchild of Grace Kauffman, a member of the downtown association’s organization committee, which coordinates volunteer efforts.
“Grace was really the force behind it,” Frederick said.
Kauffman said Friday that she had wanted to find a way to involve more young people in efforts to improve and promote downtown and began researching Main Street youth volunteer programs, but couldn’t find one in the state.
“Then we kind of designed our own,” Kauffman said.
Kauffman said about 50 children and parents turned out for the first youth volunteer meeting in June 2011, held then so volunteers could help with the association’s Fourth of July parade.
Two years later, Kauffman estimates that youth volunteers have given 1,642 hours, organizing and running events such as the Heritage Days carnival last year and the second annual Royal Tea in May.
Kauffman said between 10 and 20 youth volunteers typically show up for the regular meetings — which are at 3:30 p.m. Tuesdays in the downtown association offices at 208 N. Laurel St. — with numbers waning somewhat in the summer and just as school starts in the fall.
Kauffman said she thinks organizing events and working with downtown business owners helps the youth volunteers become more connected with the downtown and learn skills necessary if they want to go into business for themselves.
“They’re being acquainted with the downtown in a different way than usual,” Kauffman said.
“Many of them have said they shop more downtown now because they know where things are.”
For more information on the downtown association’s youth volunteer program, visit the association’s web page devoted to the program at tinyurl.com/PADAYouths.
Mullen said her organization does not have a dedicated youth volunteer component like that in Port Angeles, but that she tries to involve people of all ages in the program’s various promotions.
“We applaud [the Port Angeles Downtown Association’s] wonderful program,” Mullen said.
Reporter Jeremy Schwartz can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5074, or at jschwartz@peninsuladailynews.com.
