Heart Of Scottsville To Host 2nd Main Street Ball And Announce Plans For The Year

By Chris Cole,
Staff Writer

On March 22, The Heart of Scottsville will be hosting its second Main Street Ball event at The Barn at 3M Farms.

Hannah Brooks, the Executive Director of The Heart of Scottsville, talked about what that event is and also spoke about plans they have for the upcoming year.

“This is our signature fundraising event of the year,” said Brooks. “We have partnered with the executive chef and owner of ‘The Brickyard’ over in Franklin, Ky. So he (Robert Stupar) will be catering for us and he has created an incredible menu. Our desserts will be created by Chloe Hogue of 773 Co., so we’re gonna have great food, music and dancing. There will be a silent auction and we are gathering those baskets now.”

Tickets for the event are $100 per person and, as of March 5, have sold 42 percent of their tickets. The event has also attracted what The Heart of Scottsville calls Silver Sponsors and includes T.J. Regional Health, Service One Credit Union and Katherine Sikora of the Laura G. Turner Charitable Foundation.

“All of those proceeds go right back into The Heart of Scottsville and we use that to support and promote downtown,” said Brooks.

It is encouraged (though not mandated) that those who attend do so a bit more formally. On The Heart of Scottsville Facebook page, a post dated February 25 reads, “Black tie is welcome but not required.

Whether you choose a classic tux, a sharp suit, an elegant gown, or a cocktail dress, the goal is to embrace the spirit of the night with a touch of sophistication. Think formal, festive and fabulous!”

As many people here know, The Heart of Scottsville is the organization behind First Friday, which runs from April through December. It’s an accredited member of Main Street America which has the goal of leading “an inclusive, impact-driven movement dedicated to re-energizing and strengthening older and historic downtowns and neighborhood commercial districts through place-based economic development and community preservation” which works “in collaboration with thousands of local partners and grassroots leaders across the nation who share our commitment to advancing prosperity, creating resilient economies and improving quality of life.”

First Friday, however, isn’t an inexpensive undertaking.

“We are also selling our First Friday sponsorships for the year,” said Brooks. “We have a title sponsorship available for First Friday. So if someone wants be the title, presenting sponsor for the entire season and get their name out there every single month, they are welcome to do so. We have that option available. But that is out of the budget for a lot of our local businesses so we have also offered the opportunity to sponsor a single event.”

Brooks then stated that something fun she’d like to do more of this year is match a sponsor with a specific event, citing that last year Smuckers sponsored a homemade jam contest.

“That was a great marriage,” she said.

First Friday will be starting back up on April 4 with the theme being “We Stand For Kids” event  to go along with April being Child Abuse Prevention Month. The square will be “painted blue” said Brooks, with partnerships with local law enforcement and child protection agencies to help identify and prevent child abuse from taking place.

There will be some fun as well.

“We’ll have an Easter egg hunt that will go from 6 until 9,” said Brooks with “our first ever outdoor movie, Inside Out 2.”

Other events that have been planned are for Gospel Night to return as well as Bluegrass Night as favorites. However, Brooks stated she doesn’t want First Friday to just be “wash, rinse and repeat.”

“We’re trying to always be looking for new talent to showcase (like) new musicians and new entertainment.” How much of that they’ll be able to do will depend largely on the funds they received through the Main Street Ball.

There are other ways though in which you can help support The Heart of Scottsville.

“We’re sitting in this big, beautiful office which is too big for Lizzy (Gardner, executive assistant) and I and we were just thinking it would be a great retail space. So we opened ‘The Fieldstore’ in the fall of last year and it’s essentially a fundraising tool for us, a gift shop, that tells the story of what it’s like to grow up in this community from our perspective. And we are adding more and more local vendors,” said Brooks.

The vendors include everything from locally sourced honey to candles to jewelry and other homemade, artisan goods but also gives The Heart of Scottsville staff an opportunity to connect with people who might just be passing through on their way to places such as Mammoth Cave or the Corvette museum.

Other initiatives that Brooks and The Heart of Scottsville have recently undertaken have come from insight given by Jeff Siegler, author of the book Your City Is Sick and has the website revitalizeordie.com. He spent the last year as a consultant to The Heart of Scottsville and, according to Brooks, didn’t tell them what they needed to do but did give them the tools to the small things they can do that tell others the residents of a community take some pride in their town.

One of the ideas that Brooks credited to “thinking differently” from Siegler was the mural that’s been painted in the basement of the city-county building. Another very simple one is planting flowers along walkways. These are things that one does not need to be specifically associated with The Heart of Scottsville to do but rather comes from just being creative and seeing opportunities that you didn’t either see before or doing what you’ve been told couldn’t be done “because it’s never been done that way.”

One such idea has come about of an imitative of Ada and Brett Oliver of Oliver Creative is “The Public Spring” (www.thepublicspring.com). According to their mission statement, it “is a curated publication celebrating Scottsville, Ky., and bridging the gap between old and new” that highlights “community events and shares stories that inspire pride, foster connection and deepen the appreciation for small-town life” that is a “collection of narratives, folklore, local legends and a go-to source for community happenings.” They emphasize that this initiative “is not a news outlet.”

“There’s so much happening in this community that it’s a challenge to get the word out,” said Brooks. “They’re really gonna help with that in making sure the word gets out.”

One thing that The Heart of Scottsville is hoping to accomplish soon is something that will, if implemented, have a big impact on everyday life here in Scottsville.

“We’ve applied for a grant through GM on Main Street,” said Brooks. “As you know, our crosswalks (on the Square) are very unique. Many people don’t know this but, this was before my time, The Heart of Scottsville originally partnered with the Department of Transportation in the city to do the beautification downtown. So all the pretty brick sidewalks and plantings and all the things. The master plan, which we have here, the way downtown was designed, was to essentially create one giant open-air market…to encourage gatherings. So our crosswalks are unique in that they are offset from the actual intersection quite a bit. It creates a bit of a challenge as you pull through that four-way intersection and you don’t expect a sidewalk to be 50 feet down the road. And the other thing is we didn’t have a lot of pedestrian traffic for years. So people just got out of the habit of looking for pedestrians.”

She continued, “As downtown is getting bigger and filling up, we have more and more foot traffic…to keep those people safe we need to address that. What we don’t want to do is waste anybody’s time or money and we don’t want to just tear up the investment we’ve already made.”

A solution that Brooks has said they’ve been trying to work on for a couple years is similar to what exists at the Nashville International Airport with “raised table crosswalks.”

“What that would do is retrain traffic to slow as they approach those crosswalks every single time,” said Brooks.

With the grant applied for through General Motors, Brooks is hoping that funding will come in for two raised table sidewalks to be installed as a test bed. Such an undertaking would be the first of its kind anywhere in the Commonwealth and it is hoped it will be implemented throughout Kentucky.

“Not only will our neighbors be safer but we’ll have solved a problem for other communities as well,” she added.

Brooks and The Heart of Scottsville is certainly ambitious. Yet it is love for this community that drives their ambition. Through the Main Street Ball, the Fieldstore and other initiatives, they hope to get the funding to bring their ambition about.