Main Street Columbus receives $20,000 grant for Fossil Park
COLUMBUS, Miss. (WCBI) – Executive Director of Main Street Columbus, Barbra Bigelow, says they are always looking for things to attract visitors and residents to Columbus.
“That’s our goal here at Main Street: to draw people downtown,” Bigalow said.
To help with that, Main Street Columbus applied for the Science Discovery on Main Street Implementation Grant from Main Street America.
Columbus was one of 12 Main Street Associations nationwide to receive an initial grant of $12,500.
With this grant, in working with various partners, Bigelow says the funds went to 3 scientific assets in Columbus: water, weather, and the Dr. John “Jack” Kaye Cretaceous Fossil Park.
Bigelow says 7 of the Main Street Associations throughout the nation received this 2nd implementation grant, which is $20,000.
She says they will be focusing on the fossil park.
“The Fossil Park is very important to our whole community. It’s a huge tourism draw throughout the world,” Bigalow said. “We want tourists to come to Columbus. That only furthers our downtown. They always come into downtown when they come into the city.”
“‘It’s to look at different sciences in our community, science assets, and for Main Street to be able to create some events and educational opportunities in the downtown area that celebrate these science assets and to encourage people to learn more about the science assets that we have in our community,” said City of Columbus Grant Writer Susan Wilder.
Bigelow and City Grant Writer Susan Wilder say they hope the park inspires curiosity, creativity, and pride within Columbus.
“It brings great pride, anything that you have that not everyone has, and not everyone has a fabulous fossil park,” Bigalow said.
“I hope that children really get interested in science, not just paleontology, but other sciences,” Wilder said. “And also, for adults to get interested in nature and what is in our community that we may not know about yet, or may not have learned a lot about yet. So, we hope this encourages people to look at rocks as they walk around and think about life like it used to be millions of years ago compared to today, and look at how we might be able to make our community better.”
Bigelow says Main Street Columbus is planning an event focused on the fossil park, which will draw people downtown, including possibly putting up dinosaur statues, so when people visit, it will draw their interest in learning all they can about the fossil park and the city of Columbus.
