Thursday was a good day of celebration for the people of Windsor.

Hundreds gathered at the Livermon Zoo and Park to celebrate the acceptance of Bertie County’s largest municipality into the North Carolina STEP Program sponsored by the NC Rural Center.

Led by Windsor Mayor Jimmy Hoggard and the five members of the town board, Windsor submitted an application to join the program which allows towns to work hand-in-hand with the Rural Center to revitalize.

Thursday’s celebration at the park provided a great atmosphere with which to kick off the program. The park was flooded with people of all ages coming together to celebrate, eat and play.

The STEP program supports economic recovery and revitalization in small towns, implements a comprehensive model of technical assistance and grant-making to aid revitalization and works to help develop public policies that encourage economic vitality in small towns.

The NC STEP committee in Windsor decided to have the kick off of the program as a community celebration and that was a stroke of genius. People enjoyed the day and learned more about the program which will hopefully aid the town in growing and becoming more economically viable.

Citizens were surveyed about different areas of the town and county and that will help the committee as they work to develop a plan that will allow the town to grow and also provide what citizens would like to have.

Special congratulations to Windsor Commissioner Collins Cooper, who found out about the program and began the process of applying for acceptance to it, as well as Stacie Dunlow of the Windsor/Bertie County Chamber of Commerce and Windsor Town Administrator Allen Castelloe for their work in providing an application that was accepted.

The hard work of those three and many others will aid the town as it attempts to keep its historic roots, but grow to meet the needs of its citizens in the 21^st century.

–       The Roanoke-Chowan News-Herald