Jacksonville Main Street is gearing up for events happening downtown, with the first coming as soon as February.
Tickets are on sale now for the 2nd Annual Dinner and Reverse Raffle happening Thursday February 7th at Hamilton’s 110 North East.
Jacksonville Main Street Executive Director, Judy Tighe says that with a reverse raffle, the excitement for some participants will build as the evening progresses.
“The big difference is, everyone is going to win something in this raffle, but you really don’t want your number called until the very end. So as we go through, we will call a number and if your number gets called, you will win a door prize, but towards the end, the last one called is the winner of a trip to Las Vegas.
We always promote shopping local, so the tickets were booked and purchased through World Travel here in Jacksonville. They are partially sponsoring the raffle prize, and we have some other local sponsors for it as well.”
Proceeds from the dinner and the raffle help fund a pair of Main Street projects, with the main benefactor being the summer concert series, something that Tighe says needs as much local support as possible in order to have the concerts again in 2020.
“We don’t have a big huge title sponsor for the series, because we only do the eight concerts. Because we take a break for the 4th of July and the Morgan County Fair, we no longer qualify to apply for the Levitt Amp grant funding, so we don’t have a title sponsor to help pay for our concerts.
So we continue to look for other funding sources, of course we are always looking for local sponsors for that event, and sponsor forms can be downloaded from our website.
The dinner and raffle will also help towards the funding of a new mural for downtown. We are hoping to add a few more to our collection, and we have some really exciting ideas for the next mural that hopefully we can raise enough so we can get that done, maybe this year.”
Tighe says that Main Street hopes another entity will be able to step in as title sponsor for the concert series, but either way, Main Street will continue to work to try and keep the popular concert series going.
She also says that plans for the new mural project are still in early stages, and she does not have an exact prototype to show just yet, but Main Street thinks that it is something everyone will be really happy with.
Tighe says that even though this is the slow time of year for Main Street events, her group is still working hard to improve the downtown and Main Street area.
“We are in the process of doing strategic planning right now, and part of that is developing long term visions and goals for the organization and then we are also planning on making some internal changes and updating how we do certain things in keeping up with the times.
So we are in the middle of that process right now, and in conjunction with that, we do want community input, we have always taken input from the community on all of our projects and ideas and so sometime in March, the date has not yet been finalized, but we are hoping to host a community gathering where anyone in the community can come and share thoughts and ideas.”
Tighe says that one popular event from years past is returning this spring, as the Downtown Easter Egg Hunt will return to the town square on Saturday, April 4th starting at 10:00 am. There will be four age groups for children to hunt and the event will be all access to ensure that children with disabilities can also take part in the fun.
Tighe says they hope that tickets for the Annual Dinner and Reverse Raffle will go quickly, and only 100 tickets will be available. To purchase tickets, or to find out more about how to sponsor events, or donate to Main Street, call the office at 245-6884 or email at info@jacksonvillemainstreet.com. More information is also available on their website at Jacksonville main street dot com.
