Jefferson Matters won two awards at the recently held Main Street Iowa Development Awards.

Of the 12 distinguished awards, Jefferson Matters brought back two that the organization hasn’t received before, including Facade Improvement of over $50,000 for Art on the Fly and Imagination Alley, along with Housing for the Pub Lofts that are above the eventual Public House restaurant. Jefferson Matters Executive Director Matt Wetrich talks about a key aspect that made both of these projects get recognized with awards.

“It’s another good reminder of all the partnerships that happen because you’ve got the City (of Jefferson) involved, you’ve got part of our Main Street team involved in getting those big grants and bringing those to the community, which these projects aren’t going to happen. Again, it’s just a tremendous effort by a lot of people that go behind the scenes, you don’t always see a lot of that, we’re really proud of all of that and all the partnerships, and we think our organization kind of helps foster that sometimes. So that’s one of the things that I think we’re most proud of out of all of this.”  

Other honors that Jefferson Matters had at the event was each Main Street Iowa organization selects their own leadership award and this year it went to the “downtown watering crew.” Board President Amy Milligan expressed her gratitude at the Community Appreciation event this past Sunday for those volunteers that are up early, sometimes by 4:30am, watering all of the plants on the downtown square. 

The awards ceremony took place this past Friday in Des Moines and about 33 people from Jefferson attended. Click here to see the full list of the awards.