It was a HOT Cinco de Mayo (no pun intended for HOTT), but crowds came out to enjoy the day! Thank you to Hispanics of Today and Tomorrow for partnering to make this great community event happen. We appreciate all the vendors, visitors, and volunteers that took part in Cinco de Mayo!

Hello Casey,

Are you ready for Mother's Day? Mother's Day is THIS Sunday, May 14th, so make sure you shop local for all the moms and grandmothers in your life!

Are you hiring? Are you looking for a new opportunity? CLICK HERE to list your jobs & to view listings!

Click HERE to order!

PSA: Now is the time to get your applications in for the Veterans Banner Program. Submitting an application gets your name/app into the lottery drawing that will take place on Monday, July 3rd at 10 am. If you have already submitted an application (previous years) we have it on file. If you want to confirm, please call the office at 620-340-6430. If you would like to submit an online application, click the link below. Sponsorship payment and pictures not needed at this time. CLICK HERE.

EMPORIA PUBLIC LIBRARY DOWNTOWN STORYWALK®

Share the Love of a Family Meal with the Library!

The Emporia Public Library invites the community to celebrate family and tradition by visiting the StoryWalk® featuring the heartwarming children’s picture book, “The Rice in the Pot Goes Round and Round” written by Wendy Wan-Long Shang and illustrated by Lorian Tu. The StoryWalk® will be available through the month of May in store windows on Commercial Street between 6 th and 12 th Avenue. Sing along with the library by reading through the Storywalk® beginning at Complete Works, LLC during the month of May.

A huge thank you to the following businesses for their continued support of the Storywalk®: Complete Works, L.L.C., Heartland Office Systems, Amanda’s Bakery and Café, Gravel City Adventure & Supply Co., Dynamic Discs, Pete Euler- State Farm Insurance, Daylight Donuts, Radiance Salon, Mi Chavelita Mexican Grill, China Dragon, Sax Hair Care, Genesis Health Club, Smith Agency, Toso Family Eye Care, Eclectic Bikes, Granada Coffee Company, Emporia Main Street, Lyon County History Center, L & L Pets, and Graves Drug Store.

We are really excited to work with EHS GSA again on Emporia PRIDE shirts! Right now we are doing PRE ORDERS for these two designs. Adult sizes xs-4x and the purple option also has youth small - youth large. We anticipate that shirts will be ready for pick up the first of June. We will contact you when they are in - we can also ship to you as well! Deadline for pre orders is Monday, May 15th! Order at https://emporiamainstreet.square.site/shop/apparel/3

With graduation just around the corner, the City of Emporia would like to remind graduates and their families of the ADA parking stalls available at the WLW Civic Auditorium. An ADA ramp for the auditorium is located at the north building entrance. For questions about ADA accommodations, please contact Kevin Hanlin at 620-343-4294.

Our volunteers are gearing up for the Adopt-A-Garden program this season! We have a few beds that need adopted. If you are interested in learning more, please contact Jess at community@emporiamainstreet.com

The Emporia Main Street Design Committee in partnership with the Lyon County History Center is excited to introduce the Second Edition of Emporia Area Playing Cards.



These colorful cards capture the rich history, unique landmarks, and influential people from the Emporia area! Each pack of cards is a standard 54 card deck and comes in a clear hard plastic box. These cards are $10 a deck and are available at Emporia Main Street (727 Commercial Street) and The Lyon County History Center (711 Commercial Street).

To order online for pick up or to ship click here.

Each card represents a person, place or thing with an Emporia tie. To read the history of each card, click here: Playing Card History

A BIG Thank You to our sponsors: Haag Pharmacy and Red Line Trucking.

Unbound Gravel Finish Line Celebration - June 3, 2023

What is this event all about? Started in 2006, Unbound Gravel is coined the World's Premier Gravel Event. Thousands of cyclists, spectators, and support crew members come to Emporia for the event. Riders leave downtown Emporia as the sun rises to tackle a variety of distances in the Flint Hills. Downtown Emporia transforms into a finish line fest with food trucks, beer, cowbells, music and more! We typically estimate that 10,000 of our closest friends will attend the event throughout the day. It is a LONG DAY, but most of our food vendors sell out. For more info and to register click here: https://emporiamainstreet.com/events/unbound-finish-line-celebration/

For more info on Unbound Gravel, click here: https://www.unboundgravel.com

The Dynamic Disc Open Block Party & Food Truck Fest - June 17th, 2023

We Love Disc Golf in Emporia! The Dynamic Disc Open & Food Truck Fest is another opportunity to hang with professional disc golfers, disc golf vendors, spectators and the Emporia community. We estimate 3,000 plus attendees for this event. To register, visit  https://emporiamainstreet.com/events/ddo/

For more information on the Disc Golf Tourney, visit: https://www.dgpt.com/event/dynamic-discs-open-2023

The Great American Market - September 9th

For the past 20 years, the Great American Market has been bringing thousands of shoppers to downtown Emporia. This event welcomes vendors of all kinds (must be family friendly) from all over Kansas and the region. It is an early morning, but we anticipate over 7,000 shoppers if the weather is nice. For more information on the event and to register, visit https://emporiamainstreet.com/events/great-american-market/

Need a graduation gift? Emporia Main Street Gift Certificates are perfect for any grad on your list. Purchase HERE!

Upcoming Activity Listing

May 20- Flatland Cruisers Car Show

June 3- Unbound Gravel Finish Line Party

June 17- Dynamic Discs Open Block Party and Food Truck Festival

July 25-26- Kansas Main Street Economic Vitality Training in Newton

August 21- Welcome Back Block Party

September 7-8- Kansas Main Street Organization Training in Salina

September 9- Great American Market

September 22-23- Apella

October 16-18- Kansas Main Street Promotion Training in Dodge City

October 28- Downtown Trick or Treat, Dia de los Meurtos, ESU Homecoming

April 13 (2024)- The Taste

Main Street is looking for individuals who love our community and want to share the HYPE about Emporia! Applications are now being accepted for the first ever Emporia Main Street HYPE Team! The HYPE Team is composed of community members who share a passion for the progress happening in Emporia and the region and have a desire to promote it. Emporia Main Street will also request that HYPE team members volunteer with the organization at least four times during the year. This can be done by helping with events or special projects. Each volunteer shift will need to be at least 2 hours. 

HYPE Team members will serve as ambassadors during large events held in downtown Emporia and will work as a united front to welcome visitors downtown, answer questions visitors may have, and encourage people to use #ExploreEmporia when posting about their positive experience in Emporia.

HYPE Team members will also act as local social media influencers to communicate all the cool things happening in Emporia. Team members will be asked to post on a social media platform (of their choosing) weekly. Emporia Main Street will provide content to be used as inspiration.

To apply to be part of the Emporia Main Street HYPE Team, individuals need to complete an online application that can be found by clicking  HERE. Applications will be open for submission through Monday May 15th. Once the submission deadline has closed, Emporia Main Street Staff and Board members will review applications and contact the individuals who will be part of the HYPE Team. Individuals who are selected, will be required to attend a 2-hour orientation at the Emporia Main Street office to learn more about the program and HYPE Team member expectations.

Throughout the year, HYPE Team members will get the opportunity to explore new parts of the Emporia community, get involved with Emporia Main Street Events, and receive some special perks along the way.

Emporia Main Street was introduced to this concept when Erren Harter, Emporia Main Street Board member & Emporia City Commissioner, attended a workshop at the National Main Street Conference held in Boston this spring.

“The workshop I attended was full of great ideas that our wonderful Main Street team can easily implement to promote not only our beautiful downtown, but also the many activities that bring in millions of dollars to our local economy,” explains Harter. “The creation of the Emporia Mainstreet HYPE Team will have a positive impact for our community. I encourage anyone that is interested in joining the HYPE team to apply or reach out to Emporia Main Street with any questions. Let’s all share our passion for the progress happening in Emporia and promote it in a positive way. ”

Emporia Main Street staff are eager to get the HYPE Team program launched and encourage all members of the community to apply.

 “We are really looking forward to having the ability to reach a large number of community members and visitors,” said Jess Buchholz, Community Development Coordinator at Emporia Main Street. “The HYPE Team concept is a way to work with and engage a diverse group of individuals and give our organization the ability to showcase the many programs and resources the Emporia Community has to offer.”

For more information on the Emporia Main Street HYPE team and how to apply, please visit emporiamainstreet.com

CLICK HERE TO APPLY

#Promotion

1. "How was Cinco?" From a volunteer that was out of town Saturday. It was really warm, but it was a fun day. The food and entertainment were excellent. It was a little weird from a traffic flow standpoint; the crowd seemed to congregate more in the 700 block than the 600 block, which was different from previous years with a Cinco and La Grind occurring at the same time (usually the traffic is reversed). There are always some things that can be improved, but overall the execution was solid and a lot of money was raised for local scholarships.

2. "Why were you gone (early last week)?" From a local member. Emporia Main Street is one of thirty-two rural communities throughout the nation that are part of the Center on Rural Innovation. The communities that are part of the network represent high functioning rural economic and community development agencies that are doing innovative work in the realm of entrepreneurial development. Once a year we meet to trade ideas and share resources while challenging each other to improve. I was gone at a meeting with Jeremy Wharton (the Emporia Main Street Fabrication Lab manager) and a board member. The weather at the conference was awful (I've never been snowed on in May), but we all came back with pages of notes. And, grant funding paid for our attendance to help facilitate better discussion across a wider geographic and socioeconomic scope, so it was time well spent. Although, I don't suggest going from freezing temperatures to 95 degree event heat in the same week.

3. "Do these events make much of a difference?" From a discussion on Saturday. Let's talk about that... The Cinco de Mayo festival brought 6,207 people downtown from the hours of 11:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. Within the crowd there were 1,919 people from outside of Lyon County, and eleven different states represented. Each time we can pull people in proximity to unique businesses we have the opportunity to retain dollars locally and create repeat traffic. We have data from before large scale events occurred on a regular basis, and the amount of visits, dollars spent, and destination traffic was nothing like it is today. When properly organized and adjacent to unique businesses, large scale events make a huge difference for our region.

4. "Does the Fabrication Lab bring people to the community?" From a civic leader. Yes. Actually, we underestimated how much out-of-area traffic and regional activity support would flow through the Fabrication Lab when starting the new division. State conferences, regional businesses, and tourism generators (like the fairy door project) are all flowing through the Lab. We have other states full of economic development agencies talking to us now about group trips to check out some of our entrepreneurial support mechanisms (incubation, the Fabrication Lab, entrepreneurial classes, financial support programs, etc.). It's been a nice additional metric to a solid organizational addition.

5. "What is the top thing you learned from the CORI Summit?" From an out-of-state friend. I have several pages full of notes about things I need to get done for the region to better prepare us for an impending economic shift due to tech. I guess the most easily implemented item that I learned was the need to simplify language associated with some of our initiatives to make them more accessible to the public. We deal with some super complex programs that either fund businesses or prepare people for the world of business, and that complexity can scare people away. Taking a little time to simplify language has been effective in other communities to diversify the entrepreneurial base, and it's a change we need to make. We can implement other things (cohorts, accelerators, reverse pitches, tech bridge programs, equity based investment platforms, entrepreneurial funnel building, etc.) but if they aren't accessible to the regional population, what's the point?

Pay your City of Emporia water bill online by visiting https://bit.ly/EmporiaOnlineBillPay

With online services, you can pay your City of Emporia utility bill by credit card, debit card, or check and manage your account.

If your account is past-due or if your water service has been disconnected, you will need to contact Customer Service for assistance with your account at 620-343-4244. Our Customer Service Representatives are available to assist you from 8:00 am to 5:00 pm, Monday thru Friday.

Come Paint with us, At the Wagon Wheel Grill & Bar

Sunday May 21st, 2pm $35 per person

Join us for a fun afternoon of art and wine at our PAINT & SIP painting Class! Celin Soukup will be leading a step-by-step instructional painting class. The painting above will be the one we’ll be painting in honor of Memorial Day.

Admission for this event is $35 per person and can be purchased in person, at the Wagon Wheel or over the phone 620-343-2525. Your admission includes all the art supplies required and if you are 21+ years of age, 3 glasses of wine or non-alcoholic beverage. Additional drinks will be available for purchase as well. We expect the session to last about 2 hours total. Space is limited so get your reservation made today!