Chocolate Walk returns to Main Street Delaware’s First Friday

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The First Friday Chocolate Walk event for tomorrow in downtown Delaware is sold out.

Those who were able to get tickets will pick up a goody bag and a walking tour map at the Main Street Delaware Inc. office, 20 E. Winter St. There will be a three-hour self-guided tour of 37 downtown merchants, each of them offering different chocolate treats.

“We have plenty of new businesses on the Chocolate Walk this year,” said Frances Jo Hamilton, executive director of Main Street Delaware, a nonprofit organization which puts on the First Fridays events every month. “A few are new Main Street member businesses like Restoration Brew Worx, A Little Simplicity and Pure N Simple.”

Another treat this year is that the weather won’t be too cold.

“This year the weather will be great, but usually we are in the teens on temperature and have even had threats of snow emergencies,” Hamilton said. “Everyone seems to really love going into all the downtown businesses and seeing what they have to offer. They come for the goodies, but this event always brings awareness to the community on businesses they may not otherwise visit.”

Delaware’s event was inspired by the Great Expectations Chocolate Walk, which benefits the Dickens Victorian Village in Cambridge.

“As a Main Street community, I regularly visit other communities for training and we all share ideas, ” Hamilton said. “I would say there are nearly 20 communities across the state that are doing some version of Chocolate Walk. This is a great fundraiser for Main Street Delaware to support all the other free activities we do in the downtown. It is great for the businesses to grab new customers. The community loves the chance to get out of the house on a cold wintry night, with the promise of a great reward.”

A new aspect of this year’s Delaware event is the participation of a Destination Imagination team from Willis Intermediate School.

“They will be set up in the Main Street office taking donations at their giving tree,” Hamilton said. “They are asking the Chocolate Walk attendees bring a personal care item, which will be donated to Family Promise.”

According to its website, the Destination Imagination program “is a fun, hands-on system of learning that fosters students’ creativity, courage and curiosity through open-ended academic Challenges in the fields of STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics), fine arts and service learning. … Participants learn patience, flexibility, persistence, ethics, respect for others and their ideas, and the collaborative problem-solving process. Teams may showcase their solutions at a tournament.”

For more information on what Hamilton calls “the sweetest night in downtown Delaware,” visit www.mainstreetdelaware.com or call 740-362-6050.

Visitors pick up treats at the Chocolate Walk in 2014.
http://aimmedianetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/40/2016/02/web1_chocolate-walk-2014-web-size-720-pixels-on-long-end-37.jpgVisitors pick up treats at the Chocolate Walk in 2014.

By Gary Budzak

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Gary Budzak may be reached at 740-413-0904 or on Twitter @GaryBudzak.

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