Committed to bringing Wayne together

Downtown Lowdown

By Maxwell Cameron – Beautiful public spaces, a historic downtown, and robust community pride- these are the key ingredients for a vibrant community, and attributes Wayne possesses in abundance. Just as significant, our city has an organization working to bring these amazing qualities together and foster a spirit of collaboration – Wayne Main Street.  As Wayne continues to move forward, our Main Street program is actively working on building partnerships and working together to create an even better Wayne.
Community building through collaboration is essential in a smaller community like Wayne, where resources and manpower are often limited.  Through partnership, we can create an economy of scale that raises the visibility of Wayne to our surrounding communities, and allows us to create projects that have a larger impact on the quality of life for our residents.  Cooperation also takes leadership to drive worthy endeavors forward, while building connections between stakeholders.  Finally, partnership leads to ownership.  When our community is engaged and involved, collectively we become invested in building the best community we can.
Wayne Main Street fully embraces the philosophy of working and building together.  Earlier this year our organization worked in concert with a number of partners on a community clean-up day (March 25).  The event resulted in nine organizations, including business, civic groups, and the City of Wayne, and close to 150 volunteers coming together to help clean up our city. Our organization is continuing to work on shared projects.  Wayne Main Street is one of the main organizers for this year’s Downtown Days event happening from July 13th – July 15th in downtown Wayne.
This event is an expansion of Wayne’s annual Sidewalk Sales event and will include family-friendly activities, promotions, and entertainment hosted throughout downtown Wayne. We anticipate that Downtown Days will draw thousands to Wayne.
Our organization is only able to take on a project like Downtown Days by working closely with the Knights of Columbus, Wayne Rotary, and a number of business owners to help make this event a reality for our city.
Working together and embracing the great things about Wayne, as well as collectively taking on the challenges we face is what collaboration is all about.  The whole being greater than the sum of our parts means that Wayne’s potential lives in our ability to work communally and create solutions that dramatically and positively impact our city. In that regard everyone in Wayne has a role to play, whether that means volunteering for an organization like Main Street, creating a project that benefits our community, or by participating in an event like Downtown Days, Wayne succeeds when we come together.
About: Maxwell Cameron is the Executive Director of Wayne Main Street.  In 2014 Wayne, Michigan was designated as a Select-level Main Street Community. For more information about Wayne Main Street, visit downtownwayne.org or call 734.629.6822.