January 22, 2014 at 2:04 p.m.
Awards season: DRI recognizes and thanks volunteers
Awards season: DRI recognizes and thanks volunteers
Members of the community gathered to applaud volunteers who came up big for Downtown Rhinelander Inc. in 2013.
Executive director Maggie Steffen said the event is a good way to say thank you to all those who have helped out.
"It's important because a group like this wouldn't survive without its volunteers from the community," she said. "They've done everything from helping out in the office, coming in to take care out of our accounting, helping out at events and a lot of other things. At the end of the day, Downtown Rhinelander Inc., wouldn't exist and neither would the downtown as a whole, in my opinion. This event recognizes those people."
There were several statewide main street award winners honored. Mark Gutteter, Henning and Ruth Hempel, Melanie Ostermann, Bruce Carlson and Mayor Dick Johns were all honored for their dedication to revitalizing downtown Rhinelander over the last year.
DRI also gave special attention to this year's honorees. The group included Mel Davidson, Mark Pelletier, Pat LaPorte, Kurt Hildebrand, Joan Belongia, Dan Kuzlik, Michelle Smith-Grage, Ray Burgan, Mandy Hein and Kaye Jaeger.
Attention then turned to the special volunteer awards.
The Design award went to Greg MacMorran and Linda Hutchinson. The Organization award when to Tina Werres and Sally Latimer. The Economic Restructuring Award went to Joe Flanders and the Promotions award went to Sherrie Belliveau and Shellie Holmes.
Steffen said DRI accomplished a lot over the past year and couldn't have done it without such outstanding support from the volunteers.
"We've done a lot in the last year," she said. "We've moved our offices so we've become more noticeable and accessible. We've redone our website. We've created a Facebook page for some of our events and revamped our own Facebook page. We reinvented our newsletter. This list is long."
One of the biggest accomplishments Steffen noted was this year's big festival.
"We put on a big signature event with PotatoFest," she said. "That was a huge success. We did our first open house for available properties which has helped bring people downtown and has helped fill some of the vacancies down here."
While the point of the awards was to look back with gratitude over the past year, another noticeable tone was anticipation. The group has even more planned for this year.
"There's always irons in the fire," Steffen said. "We're talking incubator and how we can help be a part of that. The Economic Restructuring Committee is working on a few things and we've got a project going with Oneida County leadership to expand PotatoFest and make it even bigger and better than it already is."
Andy Hildebrand may be reached at [email protected].
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