​2014 Annual Meeting: Women of Main Street

Nominated by Main Street Manning

Each year, Main Street Manning hosts an annual meeting and invites the community to recognize downtown merchants' achievements.

For the 2014 event, organizers decided to change things up. Instead of having all downtown businesses set up displays, they decided to highlight women entrepreneurs and celebrate the Women of Main Street.

Forty-two local businesses either owned or managed by women set up displays in an open-market style. Others attended the event and were recognized as Women of Main Street by their name badges. Each participant received a gift bag with a window decal recognizing them as a Woman of Main Street and a business card holder reading "Manning Women Mean Business."

More than 250 community members attended the fun event, looked at displays, discovered businesses they weren't aware of and enjoyed food from local restaurants. As a bonus, the event allowed Main Street Manning to show off the on-going renovation of the former Belk building, a historic downtown structure.

Sponsors from every part of the community pitched in, from providing decorations and lending the manpower for set up and clean up to advertising the event and printing programs with biographies of each Woman of Main Street.

The event's success was evident from the positive comments received and posted on social media and the large number of sponsors, attendees and participating businesses.

Contact: Carrie Trebil at ctrebil@ cityofmanning.org or 803.435.8477