With a quickly diversifying population the Town of Lexington, which prides itself for being a ‘participatory municipality’, wanted to get the newcomers as well as the existing citizens engaged with the local government.  In order to accomplish this they created the Citizens’ Academy which is a ten-week program that allows the citizens better understand how municipal government works through discussions, presentations, etc. The program is very cost efficient and is an annual service that allows continued collaboration between current and new citizens. The program has been nominated for the 2016 Local Government Excellence Awards in the category of Strategic Leadership & Governance (populations of 10,000 – 49,999).