By Jodi Hausen,Staff Writer

WILTON – To say Wilton’s Shannon Smith is tenacious would be an understatement, judging by her accomplishments and the nomination that earned her the Main Street Volunteer award from the Maine Downtown Center on Wednesday.

“She never gives up. She’s someone no one can say no to,” Leah Binder, one of her nominators, said Wednesday.

Binder, vice president of the Franklin County Health Network, and her assistant, Janis Walker Campbell, nominated Smith for her tireless efforts since the 1980s in organizing Wilton’s annual Blueberry Festival and for this year in particular.

“We nominate Shannon now because this year’s event was one of the most meaningful and moving in the festival’s history, and indeed in the history of the Franklin region,” they wrote. “Culminating six years of continual persistence, Shannon was successful in attracting to Wilton the Vietnam Moving Wall, the 911 Rolling Memorial and the 195th Army National Guard Band.”

The Vietnam Moving Wall “meant so much to people,” Binder said. “No one deserved this more than her. She’s one of our community shining stars.”

The Maine Downtown Center, a program of the Maine Development Foundation, is devoted to fostering community-based downtown development that results in economic growth, historic preservation and cultural enhancement. Smith was recognized, along with about a half-dozen others, for excellence in downtown revitalization at an annual downtown conference held Wednesday at the Chocolate Church in Bath.

According to the nomination, Smith “single-handedly” solicited approximately $42,000 from more than 90 businesses and individuals to fund the event. Despite illness this year, she dedicated more than 2,000 volunteer hours to the Vietnam Wall project and was known to work 80-hour weeks on the festival.

“Indeed even when she is doing her shopping at the grocery store or getting her hair done Shannon never misses an opportunity to solicit just one more contribution,” Binder and Campbell wrote.

Smith said Wednesday that when she is in organizing mode, she doesn’t see her husband, Franklin County Deputy Albert Smith, much.

“But he’s a good telephone receptionist,” she joked.

“I love a challenge and I love my community,” she said about organizing the event that attracts more than 15,000 visitors and 3,500 participants to the town of about 4,500.

“But I don’t do it alone,” she said. “It was a team effort. I orchestrated it all, but I never could have done it without the many people who made it work. I don’t do it to get this (award) but I was delighted.”