Lessons from an Idea Friendly Gift Shop in a Small Town
One of the chapters in my upcoming workbook is about using crafters as your next set of entrepreneurs. Stephanie from Canada shared her crafter entrepreneurial story with us! You don’t have to go it alone. Fourteen years ago Stephanie and her sister moved to a small town that had lots of summer tourists but no…
Turn your crafters into entrepreneurs and a new choice for shopping during the holidays
I’m writing a workbook. About ways to save your small town. Here’s one chapter from the book. Crafters can be your new entrepreneurs You can boost creativity while building community with co-crafting events such as “crafternoons,” hacker or maker days. These are events where crafters/makers/or hackers gather together and do their thing. Sometimes they are…
Entrepreneurship in small villages in Portugal – Speaking about small businesses, entrepreneurship and sharing rural stories
In today’s global economy, entrepreneurs are always looking for new opportunities to innovate and create value. Small towns and villages are often overlooked and also can be a rich source of local knowledge and expertise. However, engaging with these communities can be challenging for people outside them, especially in areas with low population density and…
Two Ways to Make Your Town More Attractive: Celebrating the Good and Welcoming Newcomers
Talk about the good things First things first, take a moment to appreciate what already makes your town special. Is it the picturesque scenery, the tight-knit community, or the awesome local businesses? Make a list of all the things you love about your town and share it with your friends. Get them involved too! Post…
Turning a school into apartments in a small town with adaptive reuse project
I talked about adaptive reuse in our Rural Housing webinar. In May of 2019 three young business owners, under the age of 35, bought the abandoned Bowtie School in Homestead PA, population 2800 people. It took them two years to figure out what to do with the building! They finally decided to turn it into 31 apartments. It took…
Are you living in a small town?
Are you living in a small town? That’s a tricky question! According to a Reddit thread, a small town is around 10,000 people, while the U.S. Census Bureau defines small cities and towns as having populations of less than 5,000 people. However, a post on Newgeography.com states that the average local jurisdiction population in the…
3 Ways to Make Small Towns Successful: Get the practical steps to Beautification, Good Leaders and Keeping Your Youth
We know that people who are open to new ideas and willing to let newcomers be involved in the decision making help create communities that will thrive. Iowa State University’s 30 year Sigma study conducted over 99 towns told us that. There are a few other things that can make your small town more successful.…
Five Cheap Downtown Placemaking Ideas
It was my pleasure to present Cheap Downtown Placemaking Ideas for Iowa State University OLLI programming. It’s a topic that garners attention because it allows a small town the opportunity to get into action and help make their downtown more attractive, welcoming and inspires economic development. Here are five ideas from the 90 minute presentation…
Christmas tree lights don’t always have to be matchy matchy in your downtown
I received lots of ideas on how to make my town a better place when I was a chamber director. One was to put up holiday lights in the trees downtown. Putting lights in trees would encourage people to spend time downtown and would be a visible sign of improvement and pride in our community.…
Do we rebuild?
In July of 2022 Letcher County, Kentucky had a 100 year flood, that left many businesses having to decide if they should rebuild or not. The devastation was beyond believe. The IGA Grocery store in the small town of Isom was one of the many businesses affected. On a visit to the county one year…