Guthrie Center is having its official Main Street Iowa public celebration at 5:30 this evening in the the Guthrie Activity Center, and all area residents are encouraged to attend.

During the meeting, Guthrie Center will meet its Main Street Iowa partners and also work to place residents on one of four committees pertaining to the town’s Main Street team–those committees being Organization, Design, Promotion and Economic Restructuring.

Revitalization President Ken Laughery says the more residents that show up tonight the better as Guthrie Center officially begins its Main Street Iowa adventure.

“You don’t play a basketball game with one player, you’ve got to have five players that are playing together, and it’s the same way with this program.  If we don’t have a majority of the community working together, we could still do it, we just can’t do it as fast and we can’t do it as efficiently… and we won’t see the kind of progress that we want to see out of this program.”

It took many months of hard work for Guthrie Center to get its Main Street designation, but now that that is official, one could say the real work begins.  Laughery explains what’s next.

“We had the basics laid out, now it’s all those little details that need to be hashed out and hammered out as far as an organization structure, a marketing plan, a design for the future of our Main Street district… and those things have to come together one piece at a time as we put all those periods in place.  I think Main Street Iowa personnel will really help us sculpt that and evolve it into a plan that can be successful.”

Laughery adds that he feels proud and honored to have been a part of Revitalization’s push for Main Street Iowa, and now he looks forward to seeing the next phase of the project through.

Also featured in tonight’s meeting will be a video showing of Guthrie Center’s skit presentation in Des Moines last month–a skit Main Street officials have termed “the best presentation ever.”