Main Street Oakland County Awards
Friday night, March 4th, my darling husband and I got dressed up in 50’s fashion (Thanks to Sutton’s for the help!) and went to the Main Street Oakland County Main Event Awards dinner at the Glen Oaks Club house in Farmington Hills, along with our friends Debbie, her husband Shawn, our friend Donna Janiczek and Molly Lalone, our Executive Director. Molly had told us we really needed to go to this event to “represent Ortonville” because our DDA was up for some awards. What the awards were for, she wouldn’t tell us. (For those of you not familiar with Main Street, it’s an economic development program that, in Oakland County, has created more than 5,000 jobs, encouraged 529 new businesses to come in and brought more than 129,000 volunteer hours to our communities.)
We mixed and mingled, chatting with other MSOC folks, like Madonna from the Oxford DDA, Hope from the Holly DDA, Lisi, who owns Ella Fashion in Oxford and Holly of the Oxford Chamber, just to name a few.
After about half an hour, we were invited by table to go get food. There was a beautiful spread laid out with salads, fresh fruits and cheeses, pasta, twice baked potatoes and prime rib! Although I did my best, I couldn’t quite finish my plate! Yummy!
Once everyone had gotten something to eat, Bob Donohue, the program coordinator for the MSOC,thanked us all for coming and then started with the evenings presentations.
First he introduced The Henry Ford Band who brought most of the music (they did a very nice job) for the evening.
Then he brought up all of the Executive Directors to the front of the stage for a ‘contest’. They all got Hula-hoops and were told to give it a whirl to see who could keep it going the longest! Our own Molly didn’t win, but she sure gave it her all!! 
After the Hula-hooping, Bob had some of the MSOC Advisory Board members come up and start giving out the different awards.
The first award, for our Extraordinary Volunteers Picnic, was for Best Volunteer Recognition program in the MSOC. The next award went to CreekFest, for Best Special Event! Unfortunately, our event coordinator Liz couldn’t come, so I went up and accepted it in her honor!
There was a glitch in the paper-work about halfway thru, when Debbie was announced MSOC Volunteer of the year, but then had to wait until they got back on track. It took another half an hour to get back to her again, so by then she wasn’t really very surprised. She handled it very gracefully. I was (am) so very proud of her! (And Debbie had the Biggest Hair at the Event! Our girlfriend Linda did it for her! It was a HUGE hit!!)
Not too long after they announced Debbie’s award, they announced the MSOC Board Member of the Year. That was ME!! I was so excited, the entire way up to the stage I just kept thinking, “Don’t trip, Don’t trip, Don’t trip”! (for those of you who don’t see me all the time, I’m more of a tennis shoes or bare feet person). Luckily, I didn’t trip and everything went smoothly from there on out.
The rest of the evening was wonderful! I was especially pleased to have shared it, not only with my friends, but with my darling husband too. (He’s usually gone or on project). It was a fun evening and I’m so happy to have been a part of it all. You can see what our DDA is up to by going to our website at www.downtownortonville.org.
xoxo Pam
