Lexington Legacy Project: Our Submission
Festival of the Horse designed to incorporate 5 key areas that are all intricately tied together. This event could be a single day event with the centerpiece being a horse parade through downtown.
1. Downtown Revitalization – Any event that occurs downtown is of course going to help downtown, but you take this event to the next level by having the businesses take an active role in presenting their storefronts in a way that shows their connection to the Horse Capital of the World. The business could also take an active role in putting on the parade thereby helping Lexington to defer some of the costs.
2. Education / Public Safety / African-American Heritage / Youth Involvement – This pulls the other 4 areas together so that they enhance one another while also reducing costs.
A) The Kentucky Horse Park has a successful program called the Mustang Troop for inner city youth. Of course the Mustang Troop would be part of the parade along with the Mounted Police.
B) Inner city youth that are not part of the Mustang troop could interact with the Mustang troop and the Mounted Police. In this way the youth could learn to be more comfortable around horses while developing a rapport with the Mounted Police. This could make the Mounted Police even more useful in particular parts of the city because they are highly visible and the youth would feel interested in coming out and speaking to the officers.
C) Develop some history education materials that could be provide to the youth that deals with the contribution and impact of African-American’s on the horse industry. Secondarily provide information on how to get onto the Mustang Troop and on becoming a Mounted Police Officer thereby creating the potential to expand the Mounted Police force with youth that can benefit from the program while benefiting the community for years to come.
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