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Uniontown Main Street program gets national recognition

By Christine Haines chaines@heraldstandard.Com 2 min read

Uniontown’s Main Street program is receiving national recognition.

The program, overseen by Rebecca Hilton in conjunction with the Uniontown Downtown Business District Authority, has received 2015 National Main Street accreditation for meeting the standards set by the National Main Street Center.

Those 10 guidelines include having broad-based community support, an active board of directors, an historic preservation ethic and an adequate working budget.

“Being on this list means we did a lot of things right,” Hilton said.

According to the National Main Street Center web page, all Main Street programs are eligible to receive national accreditation, but not all make the grade.

“It’s going to put us higher up on the list when we apply for grants,” Hilton said.

Each Main Street program is evaluated each year to see if it meets the standards for national accreditation. One standard is the active preservation of historic buildings. Hilton said she documented more than a million dollars worth of private investment in downtown businesses just in one block.

“We’re talking about a huge amount of money invested that says they believe in downtown,” Hilton said.

That financial investment, combined with the time invested by volunteers to plant flowers, to organize parades and concerts and to attend board meetings, showed the commitment of the community. Hilton said she has also attended a number of training seminars for the Main Street program.

“I understand the Main Street program and the things we are to be doing such as the greening of downtown and promoting small businesses,” Hilton said.

The National Main Street Center has worked with more than 2,000 communities since its founding 35 years ago. According to the organization, participating communities have leveraged more than $61.7 million in new public and private investment over the years, creating 528,557 new jobs and 120.510 new businesses.

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