Charles Duhigg’s new book Supercommunicators: How to Unlock the Secret Language of Connection offers practical ways to hold deeper, more meaningful, less conflict-driven conversations.

Given the divisiveness in small towns and rural communities today, these are essential community-building skills.

It’s also relevant for rural small business owners who face a variety of communication challenges with customers, employees, suppliers, community members and more.

Duhigg’s name may be familiar. He also wrote The Power of Habit, another book I found useful.

In Supercommunicators, he covers different types of conversations we have: practical, emotional, and social. Usually, we don’t even think about what kind of conversation we’re having, and that leads to the kinds of problems we’re all used to. Duhigg provides insights on how to recognize and adapt to each type of conversation.

The book’s advice on everyday conversations is particularly useful. This advice is practical and not too hard to remember. Simple graphics make concepts ultra clear. The advice on social and belonging conversations is trickier. When we’re talking about who we are and how we fit or don’t fit in, more care and more guidelines are needed. It starts to feel like a lot, but it’s better than pretending we already know all about it.

The biggest issue I had with the book is the complicated structure within sections. Duhigg often starts a story, then interrupts it with another story, then interrupts that with explanation. It makes it hard to keep track of all the narratives at the same time if you’re not reading large sections in one sitting. Despite this, Duhigg does a good job of getting the practical information across, and the illustrations make the book engaging and informative.

I received an advance copy of the ebook at no cost from the publishers via NetGalley. These are my honest opinions. The book’s publication date was set for Feb 2024.

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As a community coach, I collaborate with rural leaders to build local capacity and engage community members in working on local priorities so their community can thrive. One of the most common topics that comes up as the groups are planning for future outcomes is their desire for unity with other community leaders. They recognize disunity as a polarizing barrier to their success as they strive to engage other individuals, organizations, or elected officials in creating a thriving community. When addressing disunity, one challenge of being a community coach is feeling the need to “fix it” because as an outsider it’s often easier for me to recognize those blind spots. However, my role is to empower individual leaders to own their failures and create solutions for putting unity back into the community.

What causes divisiveness?

Do personal disagreements turn into community standoffs? Photo by Becky McCray

So, what is it that brings disunity to a community? Below is a list of some common culprits:

• Lack of trust between leaders and community members
• Resistance to change
• Leadership immaturity
• No defined purpose or vision
• Inconsistency in meetings
• Unfulfilled promises
• Competition for resources or power
• Unclear communication methods
• Self-centered interests
• Burnout and stress
• Allowing events to railroad relationships

To address disunity as a polarizing barrier to developing a thriving community, it’s essential to name the specific causes at play from the list above and implement strategies to mitigate them. Below is a list of improvements that can be made by individuals, organizations, or elected officials to find more unity in their community:

Open Communication

The foundation of any united community is open and honest communication. Offer encouragement and opportunities for community members to express their thoughts, ideas, and concerns. Create platforms for discussion, whether through community meetings, online forums, or social events. Effective communication ensures that everyone’s voice is heard, fostering an inclusive atmosphere where decisions are made collectively.

Include Everyone

When you include everyone, what will that look like? Photo by Becky McCray

Diversity is a strength, and inclusivity is key to building unity. Celebrate and respect the differences among community members, including cultural, social, and economic diversity. Develop programs that actively involve people from all backgrounds, ensuring that everyone has a place at the table. When people feel valued and heard, unity naturally follows.

Purpose and Goals

A united community needs a clear purpose and shared goals. These goals can be as simple as improving neighborhood safety, organizing cultural events, or addressing local environmental issues. When community members work together towards a common purpose, it strengthens their sense of unity. Ensure that the goals are transparent, achievable, and reflect the diverse needs and aspirations of your community.

Connect through Collaboration

How can you help people work together across groups? Photo via Deb Brown

Create opportunities for collaboration within your community. Encourage community members to form teams and work together on projects, whether it’s a local garden, community signage, or organizing social events. Collaborations not only improve the quality of life but also foster a powerful sense of belonging and shared responsibility.

Empower and Engage

Empower community members to take ownership of their shared spaces and challenges. When individuals feel a sense of responsibility for their community, they become more invested in its well-being. Encourage people to take on leadership roles, participate in local governance, and contribute to the betterment of the community.

Inspire Learning

Promote education and awareness about programs or initiatives within your community and from resources outside the community. When community members are well-informed, they are more likely to respect and support each other’s values, leading to a stronger sense of unity.

Celebrate Achievements

Find more ways to celebrate more successes in your community. Photo courtesy of Norfolk County, Ontario.

Celebrate the milestones of your work and recognize the efforts of individuals and groups who have contributed to the betterment of the community. Regularly holding events and celebrations not only instills a sense of community pride but also reinforces the feeling of unity and camaraderie.

Conflict Resolution

No community is without its conflicts. The key to maintaining unity lies in how these conflicts are managed. Establish an impartial conflict resolution process that allows for disagreements to be addressed constructively. Mediation and open dialogue can help community members find common ground and reach mutually acceptable solutions.

Commitment to Planning

Keeping unity in the community is an ongoing process that requires long-term planning. Establish a vision for the future and work collaboratively to achieve it. Encourage community members to stay engaged and commit to building a strong, unified community for generations to come.

Building unity in a community is a transformative process. By following these essential steps, your community can create a sense of belonging and togetherness that will empower its members to thrive and make a positive impact on society.

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Photo courtesy of IEDC

Guest post by Deb Brown

What attendees learned from attending the Idea Friendly Session by SaveYour.Town at the International Economic Development Council Conference — Big Ideas you can copy in your town 

Becky McCray and I were excited to lead an interactive Idea Friendly workshop at the International Economic Development Council Conference in Dallas in September of 2023.

The Idea Friendly Method is:

• You gather your crowd with a big idea. 
• You turn that crowd into a capable network through building connections.
• You and the crowd accomplish the big idea through small steps.

What Happened in the Idea Friendly Workshop

Attendees developed their own Idea Friendly Projects after learning what Idea Friendly is and how to use it effectively in rural communities. 

Engaging the audience, we asked what their rural challenges were. Not surprisingly, they aligned with the top 5 rural challenges on our Survey of Rural Challenges results: 

1. Shortage of good housing
2. Downtown is dead
3. Not enough volunteers
4. Losing Young People
5. Lack of Childcare

The attendees broke off into groups and chose a challenge to work on together. Each table had a flipchart sheet and the group worked the challenge through the Idea Friendly Method. The different groups presented their results to the entire room.

Photo courtesy of IEDC

What the Big Ideas were: 

Challenge: Housing

Big Idea: Offsetting public infrastructure to incentivize private development 

This idea brought to light the number of people who wanted help with a 12 unit housing development. The first small step they would take is to work with the economic development organization to find ways to bring the interested parties together for a conversation. 

Challenge: Not enough volunteers

Big Idea: Volunteer engagement and involving the whole community 

Their ideas included helping to promote all the possibilities for volunteering and creating a guide to managing volunteers ensuring any required government protocols are well explained. They created a brilliant tagline: making volunteering painless. 

One attendee said to me, “Friend, I’m just a redneck from Alabama and I never get to meet people from other places. This was awesome!” Attendees came from the continental United States, Puerto Rico, Bermuda, Saipan, and Canada.

Challenge: Losing our young people

Big Idea: Helping youth boomerang back 

This group was excited about working with different organizations and people to create a strong publicity campaign. This big idea uses storytelling and sharing the small wins with some catchy promotional pieces. “Wish you were here”, “While you were gone”, and “We’ve grown up” are some of the hooks to use in promoting the community to their audience of young people. 

Big Idea: Downtown is dead

These folks took their big idea to fill the downtown and built out a list of who else wanted to work with them, and then built possible connections that could help get it done. They realized they were not alone and had others in their towns that wanted to help. 

Challenge: Lack of childcare

Big Idea: Create a downtown childcare facility 

After identifying a long list of people and organizations that would want to join this project, the group came up with the idea of playground “playdate” to bring them all together for productive discussion. They were excited to see how a new downtown childcare facility could not only improve the availability of childcare, but also spur downtown revitalization and contribute to positive placemaking. 

Creating Idea Friendly Projects is an easy to use and effective way to address our rural challenges. 

This interactive IEDC session was a great success, and it was inspiring to see the plans the participants came up with to address the challenges they were facing. By working together and using innovative approaches, we can create more vibrant and resilient rural communities that are better equipped to face the challenges of the future.

“Thank you both so much for your preparation and execution of your session today! Sincerely, it was a true pleasure meeting and supporting you today. Your preparation and professionalism was reflected in your session. I appreciate your adaptability as well.”

Alexa Schultz, IEDC

Next steps:

• Reach out to SaveYour.Town about an Idea Friendly Workshop for your community or event
• Read more about the Idea Friendly Method. 
• You can also watch a 24 minute Idea Friendly video for a $5 investment into your community. 
• Don’t forget to sign up for our free weekly newsletter that addresses rural challenges! 

I spent some valuable time last month doing a bit of data discovery about rural communities. In my search I explored an interactive map* showing the percent change in total population from the 2010 to the 2020 Census at both the state and county levels. I first zoomed in to view the South Dakota county-level data – it was a mix of blue (growth) and beige (decline) county blocks spread across the east and west sides of our state. I discovered 33 of 66 counties in South Dakota had positive population growth in the past ten years!

The story of one county

Then I zoomed out to view the population change map of the United States.* I uncovered something interesting — one (and only one) darker brown county in the southernmost tip of Illinois — Alexander County – bordered by the intersection of the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers. I was curious, so I clicked on the map to see their 36.4% negative growth rate was the largest of any of the 3,138 counties across the United States. Alexander County’s 2020 total population was 5,240 compared to their 2010 total population of 8,238. That drop in population is a significant one-time decline, but the truth is Alexander County had been losing large segments of their population since its peak of 25,496 residents during the 1940s. Over eight decades, they’ve had an enormous 80% loss in their total population.

What happened?

Without living in Alexander County, it’s hard to know exactly what’s been happening, yet one author, David Szoke, writes an extraordinary viewpoint in his essay about the region’s drastic decline, titled,
Heartland Deluge: Race, Flooding, and the Two Alexander Counties, Illinois. It is a compelling read. Here’s a segment of the full essay:

“This migration illustrates the flight from rural pressures as agricultural communities struggle to combat the river’s unceasing ebb and flow. The two Alexander Counties – Cairo in the south and the smaller white towns to the north – represent two different responses to the hardships of the modern rural Midwest. Today, flooding remains the most significant shared factor in the decline of the two Alexander Counties. Neither community has had the infrastructure nor the funds to fix their dire situation. Alexander County exemplifies rural America in microscale, illustrating the racial tensions and isolation felt by black communities and the abandonment felt by struggling farmers facing submerged fields, lacking the political capital to sway the legislators who could fix their housing and flooding crises. The rivers straddling the county’s borders, once providing commerce and agricultural abundance, now act as the greatest threat to the livelihoods of those who remain. However, the Ohio and Mississippi are not responsible for the manmade decline of Alexander County; they may be the force which depopulates the humble lowlands for good.

I hope as you’re reading this essay online, you will reflect on what has attributed to the historic population shift of your own rural community, because rural population decline is a fact, but it’s not the whole story.

3 Takeaways for rural leaders

My takeaway from learning about Alexander County, Illinois, is that our greatest actions as a leader are to

1. show up with some hard facts
2. guide conversations that develop strong relationships on both sides of an issue
3. ultimately work on building trust

As local leaders — whether you are a volunteer, elected, or paid — our actions or lack thereof have long-term consequences.

Any community that chooses to die a long slow death like Alexander County, Illinois, is most often filled with local volunteer leaders, elected officials, and residents who are not open to looking at data, making hard choices, addressing conflict, exploring what’s possible, or working on unity around the core issues of what it means to be a thriving community or region.

********

My county’s numbers and our strategies

In Marshall County, South Dakota, where I live, population decline has been constant since the 1920s when our population peaked at 9,596 people. This is common for many rural counties. Every decade after the 1930s Marshall County has lost between 5% and 15% of our population, except for in 2010 when the Census showed an uptick of 1.7% growth. Now with a population of 4,656, which is approximately a 50% decline in population over time, we are a thriving region.

To address our challenges over the years, Marshall County, South Dakota, has made critical investments and implemented various innovative strategies to attract and retain as many residents as possible as economies have shifted. Some of those efforts were:

• Economic Diversification – Developing an industrial park in the 1970s in Britton and attracting Horton Industry was a lasting monumental move as the agriculture industry began shifting away from family farming, more women were entering the workforce, and higher paying jobs with benefits were needed. Now several manufacturing businesses operate in Britton as a hub for hundreds of regional jobs. In the 1990’s our regional economy diversified by adding a large dairy operation.
• Investment in infrastructure – This is more than streets, water towers, and sewer lifts — it’s about starting a rural water system, investing in the hospital multiple times, supporting emergency services, making parks accessible for everyone, focusing on tourism, historic courthouse rehab and expansion, and keeping Main Streets alive.
• Promotion of quality-of-life factors – The redevelopment of Ft. Sisseton Historic State Park, implementing local events, promoting the lakes region, quality libraries & museums, and supporting youth sports are just a few factors in our region.
• Support for entrepreneurship – The catalyst for local entrepreneurship was when we partnered with Dakota Rising in a three-county collaboration. Today the culture of starting your own business is alive and supported by economic development.
• Collaboration among community stakeholders – Having visionary leaders and mentors to keep developing those leaders over the decades is critical to our success in Marshall County. Whether it was the creation of Britton Area Foundation or starting Glacial Lakes Area Development, local leaders have spearheaded change for our communities.
• Initiatives focusing on rural healthcare access – Having our own hospital and ambulance service is vital. We also have a strong County Nurse position who visits schools, brings in the Delta Dental van, and educates our community.
• Evolving education – Changing with the times and collaboration has been a key factor in the success of our two remaining K-12 schools in Marshall County. Whether it’s starting a High School Trap Shooting Team or allowing students to become apprentices/interns at local businesses, we put students first, promote excellence, and let students know they are welcome to thrive in the region after high school.
• Broadband connectivity – Partnering with our local cooperative, Venture Communications, has put us on the forefront of advanced technology.

When faced with the data of declining rural population, instead of viewing our rural places as a relic of an idyllic past, we must recognize the innovative spirit that made our communities vibrant along the way. That innovation remains key to the future of our rural places. The good news is that innovation, diversity of ideas and people, and new concepts don’t need to be imported to your rural community – they’re already there.

*Map Source: 2020 US Census Demographic Data Map Viewer, accessed August 2023, https://mtgis-portal.geo.census.gov/arcgis/apps/MapSeries/index.html?appid=2566121a73de463995ed2b2fd7ff6eb7

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Change can be activated in a society
by way of story.”

from the book Spirit Run

I just returned from Jackson County, Kentucky and the small town of Grayson, Kentucky. There’s a natural beauty in those mountains and winding roads. The people were kind, helpful and want to see their towns thrive. They shared stories of their history, the people and their dreams with me. Some had stories of failure and are working on raising up out of that despair much like the phoenix did. When I’m on an Idea Friendly onsite visit, I look for ways people can take small steps, to volunteer in a small way. I also look for the stories of locals already serving their well-loved communities. The power of story has the ability to change the outcome of a town.

Jackson County

This is a story to be told, often.

I met a couple in Sand Gap, KY who bought The Whistle Stop Express and there was a large building that came with it. They’ve turned it into a community center and the folks in town are welcome there with open arms. There are meals for the hungry, hugs for all, opportunities to belong to a community. There’s been a problem with drugs in town, and several residents are no longer the people they were before drugs ruined their lives. These owners treat everyone with respect and care. But even more than that, they treat them with love. They set an example every day of how to treat our fellow human beings.

Here’s a one day job volunteering that he did willingly.

One gentleman showed up at the community center the day I was there dressed as the Easter Bunny. He had been at the local jail, the community center, the gas station – anywhere that needed some cheering up.

Here’s another short term opportunity to volunteer.

We took a driving tour around Annville, KY and noticed this housing place nestled among the mountains with a babbling brook and park space behind it. Shame on me, my first thought was “why do people keep trash like that outside of their homes?” It was pointed out to me that the grandmother who lives there is raising her grandchildren and doesn’t have the wherewithall or physicality or time to clean up that small mess. The woman giving us the tour stated this would be a great half a day volunteer opportunity for a bunch of ninjas. And said she’ll get right on that. Two other people in the car said they’d help.

Talk to each other

The first evening I was in Jackson County they held a gathering for anyone who wanted to come and hear about ways to save their community. Erik from Backroads of Appalachia made available the small historical site at Big Hill to gather. The image below is just 1/3 of the room. I don’t go to any town, bring a template with some big city idea on it they can dumb down. I ask folks to tell me who they are and what they want in their community. Then we talk about it.

Here’s one story of many folks who volunteered in a small way to help a new business get started.

Kathy pictured in the lower left wants to start her own outdoor business providing items to use to traverse the region. But she only has one side by side. We talked about just getting started with that one item. And one lady offered her canoe for Kathy to use. This started a conversation around the room of how she could start now, using what others offer and they would help her too.

How volunteers can work together in partnership

The couple next to Kathy are farmers, who used to run a dairy. Dairy farming is hard, and they had to try something else. He has converted the dairy barn into a space where he can do woodworking. He also wants to really use that space, and make it available for others to use. We talked about the Old Geezers Club in Akron, Iowa. Several others in the room had ideas for them and wanted to help. There were artists in attendance and were grateful for a space to work on their art, and also sell it. They could also volunteer to be in the space sometimes to help run it.

Your officials need to hear your stories

McKee, KY is the county seat and also has the fastest internet speed in the United States. That’s because the Peoples Rural Telephone Company and their leader Keith Gabbard have made it so. You can read about how that happened in The New Yorker article. This group met and had a lively discussion with me. Keith is the guy on the far left. Tim Truett, the 89th district state representative was there too. He’s also the elementary school principal. Small town folks wear many hats. Many of these folks have been trying to establish a lodging tax. However, a magistrate has to ask the fiscal court to review it. And no magistrate would do that. Funny, you mention the word ‘tax’ and people get nervous. Tim, along with the tourism board, got the fiscal court to look at it at their next meeting!

Talking about what you want can lead to volunteer actions that make small things happen

One gentleman was fed up with the trash and illegal dumping in the area. Another artist in the room proposed using the old cars and create a transformer art exhibit. There were stories of folks who’ve worked in the region making their parks available to all. We found out there are 200 rooms available for visitors to use, but not an updated list of where these Airbnb’s and cabins were located. This week I received a spreadsheet with that updated list! Talking about what they wanted led to volunteer actions making small things happen. The power of sharing your story shines through.

Grayson, KY

You can stop if you want

Grayson was not to be outdone. We started at the Grayson Art Gallery early in the morning. A big tables worth of people showed up at 8 am. They were there to hear what they could do to help their small town. Many of them stayed for the rest of the day, spent with a walking tour of downtown, lunch and a driving tour of the region. The folks in the picture below know how to volunteer.
There’s the local college president, the mayor, a city council person, a couple of business owners, a state senator, a high school student and the Main Street director. We talked about partnerships, taking small steps and getting in action right away. The state senator told us a funny story, well, kind of funny. They used to have a master gardener’s group that was active. But they got older and less willing to do the work. So they created fundraisers … to pay others to do the work! Oh, the irony.

Idea Friendly: kill the committees, get to work and have fun with taking small steps

The mayor kept notes on his phone, but just the notes that pertained to him. (Yes, I gave him assignments.) The Main Street folks plan to set up an Art Trail and involve the artists in town. And the two of them won’t do it all themselves. The artists and building owners will be involved. As we walked around, we got some permissions on places to put murals.

There was a discussion about adding EV stations downtown in a parking lot. One of the attendees will find out how to make that happen. The mayor put on his list to work on lighting up the parking lot at night, so store owners can park there safely instead of in front of their stores. The high school student is going to bring her friends to city council meetings. The mayor thinks adding a nonvoting student to the council is a great idea and will pursue it. There are many opportunities for everyone to volunteer, without setting up committees, in the ways that they want to help.

Volunteering can be easier and with more people, yet make such a big difference in a small way

I started this letter thinking about the importance of telling our stories in our own communities. That change will come when our good reasons why are out there for more people to know about. Then I found a common theme amongst these stories – how volunteering can be easier and with more people, yet make such a big difference in a small way. Many people in small towns are not aware of the various ways they are already volunteering, or the many other ways where volunteers are needed. If only for a few hours.

Telling our stories, sharing our ideas and asking for help make change possible, and sooner.

Thanks to the kind folks in Kentucky for welcoming me with open arms!

At the Main Street Now Conference in Boston, I joined a trolley tour of the six Dorchester Main Streets.

We got a chance to walk through The Guild‘s expansive building. While this space is only one of many projects of The Guild, it was the one that caught my attention as useful for small towns.

The building was furnished and opened in less than 5 months for less than $100,000. It’s intended as a healing space, a calm space where anyone from the neighborhood can come in and relax for a time. They also hold special events for the community. Not weddings or parties, but more community oriented gatherings.

The art is from local artists. Many of the earth-toned wall hangings are dyed with the actual dirt from this neighborhood, that’s how rooted this is in the community.

• You could pop-up a similar community healing space temporarily, and for a lot less money. I bet small towns could borrow just about everything they’d need, including the building.

Which feels better downtown: a calming space or an empty building?

Vacant buildings, especially formerly significant ones, are reminders of loss, Trinity Simons Wagner of the Mayors’ Institute on City Design said at the Placemaking Conference.

That empty building as a reminder of loss adds negative weight to everyone’s perception of your downtown. Your people deserve a calming space like this much more than yet another empty building.

This also ties into the Wellness Travel trend we’ve mentioned. Wellness appeals to both locals and visitors. maybe pop this up around the time of a big event.

Photos by Becky McCray.

What do you think about doing this in your community?

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Got empty buildings?

Every small town has empty buildings and empty lots. Gowrie is no exception. During my walk around, I took these photos of empty buildings.

My favorite thing to do when you have several empty buildings is to host a Tour of Empty Buildings.

An Empty Buildings Tour is a community event that showcases vacant or underutilized buildings. The goal of the tour is to raise awareness of the issue of vacant buildings and to generate interest in repurposing them. Tours can be organized by local chambers of commerce, economic development agencies, or other community groups. It’s also a great idea for realtors to get together and host a tour!

It can be as simple as adding buildings to a list to be viewed on a given date and time. Create a map and make it available for people to download or pick up. Market it online and offline. I recommend having the owner or realtor on site to answer questions, hand out information and maybe even show them around.

You could have presentations by experts on issues related to vacant buildings, such as real estate development, historic preservation, and economic development. Tours are often followed by networking events or other activities that encourage participants to discuss ways to reuse vacant buildings.

I created and organized the Empty Buildings Tour in Webster City, Iowa. There were 12 buildings on the tour. Ten were filled within 18 months.

SaveYour.Town has created an Empty Buildings Tour Toolkit if you want to host your own tour.

Share Spaces

Coppes Commons, Nappanee, Indiana: An old factory with 100,000 square feet of space had sat empty for years. Made hoover cabinets. There was little chance another big manufacturer would swoop in and fill it all up. So, a local family bought the factory, they’ve opened it up, a little at a time, for smaller uses. There’s retail space, an ice cream shop, all kinds of cool and fun things. They now have 11 businesses, large and small event spaces, and a business center. And they still have a lot more room to grow in the future. Rather than waiting until someone was ready to fill the whole thing, they split it up, and now they have a thriving retail space.

Addison James is a business that sells clothing. They also have a skin care specialist, photographer and graphic designer in their space.

The Drill Barbershop was one of my favorite places to visit. Phil DeCastro is a big fan of disc golf. He’s made it possible for others to participate and provides access to supplies people need. That’s a cool thing about living in a small town, it’s pretty easy to get involved in the things you like to do.

The Picket Fence offered lots of choices in product. They also have a quilter in their space! You can find them often doing Facebook Live at night so you can shop online with them too.

Incubator

When I was the Chamber of Commerce Director in Webster City, I had an idea for an informal incubator project. We had a building owner that had several buildings downtown. I approached them with the incubator project idea. Put your buildings in the program and you offer 3 months free rent and reduced rent the rest of the year. The chamber agreed to help the businesses that went into those buildings with marketing, and the SBDC (Small Business Development Center) came in to help the business with creating a valuable business plan.

Benefits to the owner:

• At the least their utilities were being paid by someone else.
• Every building needs love, and this provided that.
• The business could leave at any time (remember, it’s a way to test out the business idea) or they could stay as long as they wanted!

Did it work? Yes.

Food

The first business was an Italian restaurant. The town loved it! It lasted a year until the husband got a job out of state. No worries though. The Mexican grocery store across the street wanted to open their own restaurant in the back of the store. The owners were saving for a commercial hood. They took advantage of the incubator project and tested their idea out. They tried new recipes and played around with open hours. And got the word out they were going to open a larger spot soon. Which is exactly what they did.

Clothing

Chicago Style rented an incubator spot for a year, then bought a building in the same block and expanded to be 3x times bigger. They’ve also helped three other businesses get started in their new location. Incubators are a great way to test out your idea, build your market, and save money for the next step.

Discussion during my presentation

There are some buildings in Gowrie that would benefit from the shared spaces idea. Take a look at the pictures above from the Empty Buildings Tour Idea. Antiques businesses are often seen sharing space. Another great use is for artists to have studio space and retail space.

The Heartland Community Room at the bank features pictures on their walls of the area, and they are for sale. Shared spaces don’t have to be similar kinds of businesses.

Murals, signs, windows and more

Sign in the local rural telecom building

Signs

In the Webster-Calhoun Cooperative Telephone Association offices they’ve got flipchart size posters that are hand drawn. It’s used to motivate, encourage and to be positive. These are simple and affordable to do. They’re not permanent and can be changed out often. It’s fun too!

Windows

It’s not unusual to see the second story windows boarded over, for a myriad of reasons. I think the owners believe no one is looking at them, and that is not true.

Here’s an idea – paint the boards over the windows. The top part of this building is empty and needs lots and lots of work. The old windows were boarded up and looked awful. The picture below is the building Chicago Style bought.

The community vitality director in Webster City, Iowa found a program involving students at Univ.of Iowa and they created this idea. An artist took large pieces of wood and drew on them, in paint by number style. They were taken out to the fairgrounds and were painted by anyone in town who wanted to help. They feature important people and things in Webster City.

The building on the left is the before, the building on the right is the after.

Murals

The local library in Gowrie has painted a mural on the side of their building. The swimming pool also has a painted mural. Where else could you add art to your community?

Mural on the side of the library

What is that?

There’s a lot right downtown that used to be a car wash. It’s an eyesore, at best. There’s good news for some quick changes you can do! The fence around the lot could be put to good use. Display students’ art, create banners for the area and hang there, have an art contest, and hang the entries there. Loren Ditzler from Warren County, Iowa sent me this picture. Their county courthouse was torn down and left a big empty pit. (They are rebuilding it.) Until it’s finished, they decided to promote their county with banners on their fence.

this used to be a carwash

Warren County banners, photo by Loren Ditzler

Talk to each other.

There are committed people in Gowrie who are excited to make things happen. Lots of people came two nights in a row to hear me talk about their community. It was great to see them talking with each other about their ideas and getting started. Even the County Supervisors came!

Gowrie Annual Dinner folks

Here’s the thing. You want to keep talking, and gathering, and working on your projects. Don’t fall into the trap of meeting to be meeting and not getting work done. You don’t need committees, or big hairy plans, or permission for most of it. You start with your big idea, gather your crowd, the people who think like you and want to see things happen. Then reach out to others that might be able to help, build your connections. Finally, take small steps. Try things out, see if they work. Let everyone participate in small but meaningful ways.

That’s the Idea Friendly Method:

Gather Your Crowd

Build Connections

Take Small Steps

And share your stories, tell folks what you’re doing. Keep the excitement going!

(if no accreditation on the photo, that means Deb Brown took it) 

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The three days were full of opportunities, presentations, stunning views, and the arts. I took notes at the sessions I attended and will attempt to recap for you now.

Alabama Textile Traditions

This panel of women spoke to Alabama’s long history of women working within both the formal and informal economies to provide for their families through sewing.

Fiber arts have long been a source of creativity, a declaration of self-determination, and a cornerstone of care.

photo from Recycled Runway 2023

Bib and Tucker Sew op https://bibandtuckersewop.org/

This business is unique not only in teaching the fiber arts, but being advocates for the industry and women. Recycled Runway is a program for Birmingham Middle and High School students. Their fashion show was in April, all items made from repurposed materials.

The March Quilts began in 2015 to commemorate the march from Selma to Montgomery marches. They decided to repeat it each year. Members  choose a civil or human rights theme and facilitate open sewing sessions and discussion.

Viola Ratcliff, program manager, 205-386-0575 viola@bibandtuckersewop.org

Black Belt Treasures Arts and Culture https://www.blackbelttreasures.com/

This is a nonprofit business in Camden, AL. They began in order to stimulate the economy with heritage arts and culture. They represent over 450 different artists.

One of the things I loved to see was the rehabilitation of an old car dealership where they now hold their classes. It’s a fabulous idea. There are many empty car dealerships in small towns, this is a great way to use the space.

Loretta Bennet https://www.facebook.com/lorettapbennett/

Loretta is an artist who said, “I was quilting before I was born.” She’s one of the quilters of Gee’s Bend. The quilts of Gee’s Bend are internationally renowned hand-made quilts made by a group of women and their ancestors who have lived in the isolated African-American community of Gee’s Bend, Alabama. The residents of Gee’s Bend are direct descendants of enslaved people who worked the cotton plantations of Joseph Gee established in 1816. The quilting tradition in Gee’s Bend goes back beyond the 19th century and some of the quilts have been exhibited at many notable museums.

Loretta shared that she is a participant in Vacation with An Artist Program.  (www.vawaa.com)  You can spend a week with her and sister and they teach the old methods. She shared they do quite a bit of work using old clothes from deceased people to make quilts in remembrance.

Takeaways from the panel:

1. Art, hands on textile art, is important to tourism, there are bus tours from all over the world that come for quilt tours.
2. Creation of this art and turning it into economic development benefits from the Idea Friendly Method.
3. Storytelling is done in many different methods. Quilting is one of those. There are barn quilts with tours in the Midwest, quilt shops that created an entire town in Missouri and it started from a youtube site that simply gave instruction.
4. Creating, quilting, is a good way to bring people together around a common theme. What else can be accomplished at these gatherings?

Small steps for work as a textile artist:

• Find fabric
  • Donated clothing and fabric
  • Work with the culture arts center
• Sell on Etsy
• Work together
  • Packing/shipping together
• Funds from vacation with an artist

Discuss your prices for handmade items:

• Labor
• Time
• Materials
• Love

Remember, it’s art. Price accordingly!

Foodways in Alabama

Sponsored by the Southern Foodways Alliance, this panel features Sarah Rodriguez, Southern Foodways Alliance’s lead oral historian, in conversation with three women who teach, preserve, and document diverse and changing foodways in Alabama.

Southern Foodways Alliance

A major theme at this conference was the importance of telling the stories of folklife in the South. Southern Foodways Alliance is capturing the stories. They are exploring the oral traditions and finding ways we are sharing our food stories. Visit their website, Southernfoodways.org and check out the videos.

Jai Williams, Southern Foodways Alliance

Jai specializes in culinary, travel, and cultural photography and was recently named as a Nathalie Dupree Fellow for the Southern Foodways Alliance (SFA.) She’s studying Black land ownership and cultural foodways throughout the South as well as documenting Mississippi’s rich history through visual media.

Again, the theme of telling the stories arises. Another way to do that is through photography.

Contact: Jaithephotog.com @iamjaithephotog

Lauren Murphy, seed saver, Hillfolk Pharmacy

Lauren is a young farmer and a seed saver. She realized while raising her special needs son that there had to be a better way to feed him. Food is medicine after all. She noticed that the seeds she had from the past were not as badly affected by the drought. gut-healing herbalist, soil-steward and traditional foods enthusiast trained in Southern Folk Medicine by Phyllis Light at the Appalachian Center for Natural Health, and in Sociology from Florida State University.

Lauren is a natural teacher and storyteller. You can listen to her on this Native Habitat Podcast session.

Hillfolkfarmacy.com (and Instagram account)

Lauren Richards, Albertville High School Culinary Arts Program

Lauren shared about how her culinary school kids discussed traditions in food, then created fusion meals. They didn’t know that the old rules say you can’t do that. It’s exciting to see what our youth are creating while using the old traditions. Just another way to tell a story!

https://www.facebook.com/ahsculinarydepartment/

Takeaways from the panel:

1. Food is medicine.
2. Food is another avenue to storytelling.
3. ‘If we don’t eat, we don’t meat’ rings true.
4. Food allows us to be daring, to try new (and old) things.
5. Food is a safe place to gather, and to learn our stories.

A quick thank you and good bye to Bill Mansfield

Bill Mansfield, NEA leader National Endowment for the Arts is retiring. He told us he welcomes calls now through end of July for touching base and answering questions.

They gave out 28.8 million in 1,231 grants last year, many to Native Arts and culture. Bill said no one is perfect but keep trying. “I don’t master the work; I master the tools.”.

One of the stories he shared was how Charleston, WV triangle district was wiped out by highways. It was once the center of black music and culture. In 1974 the area was demolished. Thousands were forced to move, because of underlying racism.

Sadly, this is not a singular story. Black Wall Street in Tulsa was the site of a massacre, white on black, and they rebuilt. Then the highways were placed into that area and Black Wall Street was gone. San Francisco neighborhoods in the 1960’s were seized with imminent domain and razed, affecting at least 20,000 people. This federally funded urban renewal movement was not just in big cities either. Greenville, NC, Tupelo, MS, Demopolis, AL were all affected. Read more in this article in the Boston Review.

Bill, may you enjoy retirement and keep on being creative!

Folklife and the Future

Alabama artists and activists Sehoy Thrower, Mary Godfrey, and Susan Walker engaged in conversation around how their present work is shaped by a dynamic vision of their community’s future.

Sehoy Thrower, Poarch Band of Creek Indians

Sehoy spoke of how the Creek were moved out of their homelands. “Our diaspora got changed, against our will.”

They  used the native plants and are trying to bring them back. It’s hard to be optimistic when you look at their land. Biodiversity is plummeting. Rivercane is gone, invasive species bamboo overtook it

Folklife traditions are the thread that never ended

Creek are a people of fire, inner and outer. Creeks have one foot in the past and one in the future.

Quilt (apologies for bad picture)

Mary Godfrey, Lowndes County Community Life Center

Lowndes County worked on the quilt project. They asked, ‘who are your people?’

Mary shared that in the quilting environment “only love [is] there.” Winnie McQueen said in a video “your name will never be forgotten.”

It’s not meant to harm; it is meant to heal, the telling of the stories. Quilters often sing when they sew.

“Happiness is very fleeting – joy lasts.”

Susan Walker, Sew Their Names Project

She restored a church from 1843, that her grandfather owned – along with the slaves. The Sew Their Names Project added the names of the slaves to the quilt they did. It was hard to find the names of slaves, sometimes just used numbers

Susan said, “Can’t have reconciliation without the truth.”

When you view the quilt, look at the left side– it’s happy white people. Then look at the right side – all slavery images.

A traveling exhibit of this quilt is coming and with songs. Then will be permanently displayed in Lowndes County.

Takeaways from this panel:

1. Will we ever learn? The treatment of the natives and the slaves was horrendous. What can we do going forward to rectify this?
2. You can’t have reconciliation without the truth. It begins with telling and hearing the stories.
3. We must take care of our Earth. We simply must, before we can’t.

Panayotis League, fiddler

Panayotis League, fiddler

Panayotis is from Tarpon Springs in Florida, and a Greek. He told of the Greek sponge divers and merchants from the Aegean islands who came to Tarpon Springs FL in 1906.

He shared songs on his fiddle. The melodies are associated with place, Kalimos and Kos. In Mobile AL were the Greeks from Crete. In New Orleans the Greek community were in the New World around 1760

“When my old people started dying was when I woke up to how amazing this music was” Panayotis said.  

Takeaway from Panayotis:

1. After he was done with his session, he went with a young man to a lobby area. He proceeded to teach him how to play his fiddle in the way of the location. In other words, he took a bluegrass song and played it like a Greek song. He was patient, kind, happy to be teaching.
2. He’s not just a fabulous musician, but a storyteller, a teacher and makes one love music even more.
3. The stories matter.

Real Meaning of Dia de Muretos

Day of the Dead altar

Mónica S. Sánchez, from the Cazateatro Bilingual Theatre Group led this workshop. The Day of the Dead is a celebration of life.

“Music and food make everything better.”

Monica had set up an elaborate altar. The Altar is set up in 7 levels, and she shared what goes on each level.

Takeaway from Monica:

1. Her excitement as a theater person was engaging. Where else can we be that excited in our lives?
2. It’s important to honor the dead, in the way each of us does in our traditions.
3. It’s all about remembering the people and the stories.

Appleshop Short Film Stories

Ethan Payne frightenedmedia.com

He directed the Appleshop films we previewed. I was busy watching the films, and feeling just like I was back in Jackson County, KY. Here’s the description from the agenda:

Appalshop recently completed four short films documenting regional Appalachian traditional artists. This series captures, archives, and amplifies the stories behind the craft. Our focus was in the following mediums: traditional music, storytelling, crafts, woodworking, and foodways. Appalshop’s documentary work has from the beginning told authentic stories of Appalachia, working from within the community to banish stereotypes and misrepresentations. The short films in this series are:

Bright Morning Stars: The Johnsons of Hemphill

That Tree Lives On: A Film About Terry Ratliff

Lady D

Full of Wonder: The Art of Angie DeBord

Takeaway from the films:

1. It’s never too late to make a difference.
2. You are never too young to belong and do things.
3. The stories matter.

Music

I recorded a little bit from the performers I saw.

Greek Fiddle

Panayotis League 

Gary Waldrep Band

Bluegrass

The Gary Waldrep Band performed an hour of traditional bluegrass music. Gary Waldrep, the founder, is from Kilpatrick, Alabama. He has participated in the Alabama State Council on the Arts apprenticeship program and touring arts program.

Gary Waldrep Band – Bluegrass

The Blues

For years, blues artists have not only performed the traditional art of African American Roots music but also utilized the methods of folklorists to preserve and share the Blues People’s narrative. This panel features Alabama’s traditional Blues artists who have participated in apprenticeships, created nonprofit organizations, and more to ensure preservation.

• 

  Blues Performance

  Jock Webb

• DieDra Hurdle-Ruff
• Keithen Ruff

Blues Musicians 

Follow FITS partners on social media and visit the websites for updates:

• South Arts
  • com/southarts
  • Instagram: @southartstradarts and @southartsorg
  • Twitter: @southarts
• Alabama Folklife Association
  • com/AlabamaFolklife
  • Instagram: @alabamafolklife
  • Twitter: @AlabamaFolklife
• Alabama State Council on the Arts
  • com/AlabamaStateCouncilontheArts
  • Instagram: @alabama_arts
  • Twitter: @Alabama_Arts
• American Folklore Society 
  • com/AmericanFolkloreSociety
  • Instagram: @americanfolkloresociety
  • Twitter: @afsfolklorists

Join the next gathering 2023 American Folklore Society Annual Meeting, November 1-4, in Portland, Oregon.

If there is no accreditation on the photo, it means Deb Brown took it.

Vanessa Morrison (holding mic) moderates a panel of the ecosystem of communities with (left to right) Mukul Malhorta, Kia Weatherspoon, and Allison Quinlan.

Recently I attended the OU (University of Oklahoma) Institute for Quality Communities (IQC) Placemaking Conference

This was the 10th annual event. There were 600 people attending from 40 counties in Oklahoma and 6 surrounding states.

I attended the 2017 event along with my colleague Deb Brown. The focus was inevitably on big cities, but I was there scouting for rural and small community ideas we could all use.

Kia Weatherspoon, President, Determined by Design, shared how her personal stories were her pathway to purpose.

Purpose Driven Path to Design Equity
Kia Weatherspoon, President, Determined by Design (interior design)

Kia shared how she came to work in interior design. Visiting her brother in prison, she found walking into the building and the entire environment to be dehumanizing. Later she served in the Air National Guard with three tours in Iraq. She improvised a space by hanging up sheets so she could feel safe dealing with the overwhelming emotions of war.

Those experiences–war and prison–brought her to understand how space hurts or heals people.

She works on affordable housing and other projects that normally don’t receive much if any purposeful interior design.

Her first project was for a domestic violence shelter for women. While some initially told her they didn’t need a well designed space because they had other needs to spend that money on, Kia persisted. Once it was finished, one of the women said to her, “When I walked into this space, I realized that change was possible for me.”

“The people who most need design don’t know they don’t have it, and they have no advocate,” Kia said.

• That resonated with me as rural people have little access to the kind of design that can make a difference in their lives, don’t know they don’t have it, and they have no advocate.

Kia said she digs deeply into the stories of the place starting with the land and the Indigenous people of the area. As she moves through the history of the place, she continues to collect stories and images to incorporate into her designs. She uses the phrase “Conjuring ripe heirlooms” to describe what they are creating.

Because these projects usually benefit people with low incomes, sometimes others will push back on her design choices. “You’re making it too nice for these people.” Kia said she sees it differently, asking herself “Is this good enough for my grandmother, my brother, my friend?”

“The spaces that we create today will affect four generations of people,” Kia said.

• That really hit me, as I don’t remember any design discussions in small towns that said out loud that these decisions will affect four generations (or more) in our community.

Mukul Malhotra showed this slide of children interacting with a map of their community. “Steal ideas from kids,” he said.

Neighborhoods and Streets for Exchange and Connection
Mukul Malhotra, Principal and Director of Urban Design, MIG, Inc.

Mukul shared stories of street designs and how they affect people and neighborhoods.

Mukul said when you design a street, don’t design it in a room. Go to the street and the people. Get design ideas from kids; they have great ideas. And test your designs before implementing them.

“As designers we don’t always know what will work,” Mukul said.

“But it looks great on a map!” is no excuse for a poor design. Spend more time on building crosswalks than sidewalks. Curbs prevent flexible uses, he said.

One of the most excluded activities is play, he said. The other is mobility.

Mukul also talked about placekeeping, not just placemaking. Many vibrant urban neighborhoods have been lost to big infrastructure projects.

• There is definitely a parallel to our small towns and what we’ve lost due to disinvestment and lack of investment through the decades.

People create places, Mukul said. Give us a reason to be there.

These one bedroom cottages had to be carefully created to meet code, comply with mortgage rules, and fit into the site.

The Power of Cute: Lovable Incremental Community Development
Allison Thurmond Quinlan, Principal of Flintlock Labs, Fayetteville, Arkansas

The product the market needs is not the product the market knows how to produce, Allison said.

As household size shrinks, we need twice as many housing units to house the same population.

1 and 2 person households are the majority of all households, but that’s not the kind of houses we have. There are more 5 bedroom houses in America than 1 bedroom, she said.

Alison said they build small and loveable housing. Loveable efficiency, they call it. Build for people.

Make things cute AF, she said.

Allison shared her design for South Street Cottages and other small scale housing.

Melody Warnick says you can increase how attached you feel to your place through simple experiences.

The Daily Practice of Loving Where You Live: How to Create Joy in Our Imperfect Places
Melody Warnick, Author, This is Where You Belong and If You Could Live Anywhere

Rooted people feel like they want to be where they live, Melody said. That feeling changes, and it takes about 5 years from arriving in a place for your attachment to peak.

Being excluded is interpreted as physical pain by the brain, Melody said.

Even if you’re a 10 on place attachment, someone else in town is a 1 or 0, she said.

Walking and biking gives you mental maps and that gives you a sense of ownership and involvement, Melody said. 

Anyone can choose to do things that will help them feel more attached to their place and a stronger sense of belonging in their community, Melody said.

Just getting a lot of people in the same place makes a community feel vibrant. Make love visible in your community, she said.

I’ve followed Melody online for many years. I highly recommend both of her books. 

Our Greatest Source of Joy and Happiness are the Vibrant, Walkable Public Spaces Around Us
Arti Harchekar, Founding Principal, JoyfulUrbanist.com

Arti said we naturally tend to react more to negative experiences. If we can create consistent happiness stimulation, we can rewire the brain to better experience the positive.

Sharing her own struggle with depression, she said third places give flexible levels of interaction to people. Even a quick exchange of “hi” and “thanks” at the local store can be supportive when it’s needed.

Order reduces our anxiety, and an organized cityscape or townscape counts. In a vibrant downtown street, you are being hugged by the environment, she said.

Where the building meets the street, what does it gift to the community? For example, a porch is a gift of being available to connect.

• I thought this was a great way to look at buildings. What gifts do they give us?

Background buildings are the givers of the local environment. They give to the whole community, Arti said. Landmark buildings stand out. You can’t have every building be a landmark or they lose what makes them special.

Put the pedestrian in the middle of the space, and they set the pace for the area.

What percentage of your town’s built environment is the streets? That’s a great question from Arti for cities, but also for small towns. We have a lot of our community in streets.

And still we love this place

Ronald H. Frantz is Director of Small Town Studios at OU Institute for Quality Communities. His previous work at Oklahoma Main Street introduced him to small towns all across the state. While introducing the panel discussion with Melody and Arti, Ron listed off a number of horrible yet true quality of life stats for Oklahoma.

“We’re last in quality of life,” Ron said. 

Cheryl Lawson of Tulsa turned to me and added, “and still we love this place.”

• There’s a lot to think about in this exchange. We can acknowledge that our quality of life isn’t great. We don’t benefit from great design, and we don’t even know we don’t have it, as Kia said. Our small towns struggle with huge challenges, and we have many challenges in common with some of our most urban neighborhoods.
• And still we love this place. We have connection, as Melody said. We have families and networks and history here. We’ve learned ways to adapt to where we are. We work to make things better, even as we face our shortcomings.

Watch for more from Cheryl Lawson, coming up.

Ron Franz, Melody Warnick and Becky McCray talk during a break at the 2023 OU Placemaking Conference Institute for Quality Communities. Photo by Cheryl Lawson.

Leadership in Place Management
Jane Jenkins, Principal, Jane Jenkins Resources, Downtown OKC (Oklahoma City)
Former Main Street director from Wagoner, Oklahoma

While Jane mostly talked about city ideas that weren’t easy to adapt, she shared a couple of great small town one liners:

You are going to make mistakes.

Money is not the issue. 

She also shared a 3 minute video based on the book “The Secret Life of Small Urban Spaces” by William H. Whyte. She called it the best 3 minute placemaking lesson available.

• While it skews urban, we can steal a lot of this for rural communities.

Big Ideas: Transforming Fort Worth’s Central City
Fernando Costa, Assistant City Manager, City of Fort Worth

This was another session that was hard for small towns to relate to.

One great point was that any community can design public spaces to encourage healthy behavior. Over 70% of health is determined by lifestyle and environment.

One suggestion that I’m sure he didn’t mean to be as amusing as I found it, was to convert auto oriented urban commercial corridors into walkable villages. So any of your wide two-lanes-each-direction sprawly areas dominated by drive-throughs and chains could be more like a walkable downtown. He even went so far as to use the words “walkable villages.” Here’s the funny part: The only three things you need are money, incentives (more money), and zoning.

• Let me know if your small town can round up money, more money and zoning for anything.

National Trends for Cities and Mayors
Trinity Simons Wagner, Executive Director, Mayors’ Institute on City Design

Again, not a great small town idea session. Even then, there were two points from Trinity that I latched onto.

Vacant buildings, especially formerly significant ones, are reminders of loss.

• That statement really hurts for small towns and rural communities, full of vacant buildings and memories.

If you aren’t building WITH your community, you aren’t building FOR your community. 

Trinity said that (If you’re not building WITH, you’re not building FOR) as almost a throwaway line as she rushed through the end of her talk. It could almost sum up the conference, as it was a recurring theme from nearly every presenter.

• I know that doesn’t mean we’ll see this attitude in practice from design professionals serving rural communities very often, but I take my encouragement where I can get it.

OU IQC Director Shane Hampton opened the conference. Dwayne Bright from Kansas City, Kansas, is seated to the left.

Rural + Urban connections

I was sitting next to (and really surrounded by) a group from Kansas City, Kansas, who attended to learn more about housing and ideas they could use in their urban neighborhoods. Dwayne Bright is a Fuse Executive Fellow working there. We had some interesting discussions about how rural communities and urban neighborhoods are similar. Both have lost housing and much more over the decades, and many similar ideas will work in both types of communities.

This was not new to me, from conversations with Cheryl Lawson and others about their communities and with you about your rural ones.

Cheryl Lawson of Tulsa attended the Placemaking Conference after seeing my tweet about it.

Cheryl Lawson is a longtime online community leader and offline placemaker in Tulsa. She created and led the #SMTulsa Conference for 10 years, and I was honored to be involved each year. Cheryl has welcomed me into the SMTulsa family, where I have learned a great deal about community building and social media.

Through SMTulsa friends like Cheryl and Carlo Moreno, I’ve learned a lot about the terrible history of the Tulsa Race Massacre, as well as Tulsa’s Greenwood District past and present, the North Tulsa neighborhood of today, and Oklahoma’s historic All Black Towns. I’m no expert, but this knowledge has definitely broadened my perspectives.

Read Cheryl’s event report at Medium.

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Learn more from AMIBA, the Shop Indie Local lead sponsor.

Today, the focus is on your community. Our ultimate goal is to build a stronger community for all your local businesses, so let’s share that story with customers. You can do this on any social tool, or in print ads you’re planning to run.

Think about a reason you’re proud to be in the community. What makes you happy about it?

Write a three-sentence story about something good in your community. End by saying, “Together, we’re making a better community. #ShopIndieLocal”

Bonus points: Do it live!

Why not tell your community story in a quick live video on Facebook, Instagram, SnapChat or TikTok? 

Multiply it: Like and share

While you’re online, look up your local business buddies. See if they have posted their mini-stories yet. When you find them, like and share them!

You can do as many of these community mini-stories as you like!

Next week:

Next week, we’ll get ready for the post-Thanksgiving rush of Plaid Friday, Small Business Saturday, Artists Sunday, Cider (not cyber) Monday, and Giving Tuesday. (No you don’t have to do them all.)

See the whole series:

Read all our articles in our Shop Indie Local series.

Learn more from AMIBA, the Shop Indie Local lead sponsor.

Reprint or share this article:

Shop Indie Local is our group theme for holiday marketing this year. You have my permission to forward these articles to your local retailers, merchants association, chamber of commerce, downtown development group or any one else you think would benefit from them. All you need to do is list the author as Becky McCray of SmallBizSurvival.com and then let me know who you are sharing with.