Mattie B’s, a local merchant in Stuart celebrating eight years of business, presented the 4th annual Oval Award to Rebecca Adcock, executive director of the Patrick County Chamber of Commerce and Vice Mayor of Stuart.
The award was created to recognize the person who embodies community and has made a difference in Patrick County and in Stuart during our past year.
Adcock “is always ready to work for the improvement of Patrick, actively seeking ways to put us on the map, continuously adding creative ideas while including many communities and individuals from new sources,” Matilda Hunsicker, owner of Mattie B’s, said.
Since moving to the county in 2008, Adcock has consistently worked to improve areas of concern, Hunsicker said in a release.
“One of the reasons we have selected Rebecca, is that many of her involvements are unheralded and only known to small groups of people. Her list of accomplishments in Patrick alone is quite a few pages long and most definitely is long reaching. Her most recent influence and project has been the new “Pocket Park” next to Tony’s Pizza incorporating over 1100 volunteer hours and the use of Barn Quilts,” Hunsicker wrote.
Additionally, Adcock’s passions in the areas of wellness, education and literacy “fit nicely in to Mattie B’s contributions to the SowHope International which has three pillars of influence benefitting women of third world countries: wellness, education and literacy. These pillars are the basis of successful healthy communities,” Hunsicker wrote.
She added that the founder of SowHope will visit November 18-22. For more information, visit www.sowhope.org.
As a member of the chamber’s board of directors, Hunsicker wrote that her “observation is that Rebecca seeks to involve multiple individuals and avenues for financial participation. She is careful with the monies received and stewarded well into our community. She not only puts in time and a half, she does it for half-time pay and seeks to find new revenue streams on a daily basis.
“In short, just as Mattie B’s is Hunsicker’s labor of love, Patrick is Adcock’s labor of love. While most of us go about living our lives every day, Rebecca goes about every day making our lives better. You cannot say that about everyone, and we want to honor Rebecca Adcock for doing just that,” Hunsicker added.
Created as option to travel or the Internet, Mattie B’s is a small shop for a small town and enjoys being a part of Main Street, according to Hunsicker, who added that Mattie B’s is a labor of love.
Adcock also was awarded $1,400 “for her next greatest idea,” Hunsicker said and wrote that she is “often asked why we don’t move or create another store in more traveled areas, our answer is always the same: Stuart is where we are meant to be. It is our desire to be a reason to come to Main Street and a reason not to leave Patrick County.”
Hunsicker added that while the mission is to remain in Stuart, “the world wide web has empowered us to do it a little more thankfully and gracefully” at www.mattie-bs.com.
Hunsicker said her husband, Bucky, also is a champion for her and Mattie B’s.
An MVP award was presented to Wendy Rudd for making Mattie B’s “a true priority and for gracefully making it through our occasional Internet woes” and Hunsicker’s ever changing mind, she wrote, and added “a bottle of Perrier Jouet champagne was given in symbol as a toast.”
Previous recipients of the Oval Award include Anna Clark Lester (2018), Dr. Richard C. Cole (2019), and Patrick County Sheriff Dan Smith (2020).
