CALUMET TOWNSHIP – Main Street Calumet is getting active again after a couple years of slowdown, and Monday, Leah Polzien talked about what the organization is doing now.

Polzien, MSC executive director, spoke during a presentation at the Keweenaw Heritage Center at the former St. Anne’s Church in Calumet Township during a community gathering with representatives of the village of Calumet and the Keweenaw Economic Development Alliance. In attendance were residents, representatives of organizations, and businesses owners.

Polzien, who works part time as the executive director, said after the MSC had to let go its previous executive director, Tom Tikkanen, in 2013 because of cost restraints, the organization wasn’t as active as it had been in years past.

“We lost that leadership role,” she said.

Main Street Calumet is part of the National Main Street Center effort, which exists to help communities develop their downtowns and commercial districts.

Polzien said after Tikkanen left MSC, it became somewhat disorganized, and as a result it lost its affiliation with Main Street Michigan.

“A lot of things started to slip,” she said. “Somebody has to step up, or this organization is going to be gone.”

She and the MSC board members are working to reinvigorate the organization, Polzien said. Efforts are taking place with such things as updating the MSC website and developing brochures about the organization to help promote it.

“Main Street, in the past, has done many more things than promotion,” she said.

She wants to develop an automated membership process, also, Polzien said.

Main Street Calumet is working to organize many upcoming events, Polzien said, including a farmers market from June to October, spring clean up in May, PastyFest in late June, an inaugural music festival in August, the Great Deer Chase in August, the celebration of the National Park Service’s centennial in August, the Swedetown Trail Run in August. The organization is also working with representatives of Calumet Township on its sesquicentennial celebration, which will take place in August.