'Main Street Madness' takes over downtown Wareham
A recent initiative is helping put the "main" back in Main Street.
The Wareham Village Association sponsored its first "Main Street Madness" on Friday. The day featured downtown businesses holding raffles as well as giving out prizes and special discounts to their customers.
"Our mission is to help revitalize downtown and to bring businesses downtown," said Rose Berry, a member of the Wareham Village Association's Board of Directors and branch manager of Eastern Bank in Wareham.
"After all the construction that has happened, we just thought, 'Let's do something fun, exciting, and revitalizing,'" Berry said.
The roads on Main Street have been repaved, the sidewalks widened and new street lamps have been put in as part of a recently completed Main Street reconstruction project. Some stores on Main Street lost business during the project.
"It's an important thing to do with all of the construction that went on," said Alan Slavin, a Wareham Selectman who helped sell T-shirts at the Wareham Village Association tent in front of its headquarters at 245 Main Street.
"We need to get together to help them revitalize their businesses," he said.
Gourmet and Gourmand on Main Street offered a 6" vanilla cake with hand-decorated flowers as its raffle prize on Friday. Piper's restaurant offered a dinner for two, and Frankenstein's Hot Dogs and More offered one free large ice cream sundae per week for four weeks.
Wareham resident Donna Cardoza was visiting Eastern Bank on Main Street when she noticed a volunteer at a stall for Minerva's Pizzeria serving free slices of pizza.
"We need something like this going on in the center of town," said Cardoza with a slice of pizza in hand. "It draws more people."
Berry agreed.
"Things can get boring. We need to shake it up," she said.
Future Main Street Madness days will be held on August 24, September 21 and October 26. Raffles, discounts and performances are held from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m.
For more information about the Wareham Village Association and its events, visit www.warehamvillageassociation.com.
