Erie
by Emily Fetcko
While business as usual has come to a grinding halt, one thing that continues to be ever resilient is the spirit of the downtown Erie community. The new challenges presented by the COVID-19 pandemic have also created unprecedented opportunity for small businesses. While their journey over the last few months has not been easy, many have stepped up to lead—not just within their business, but within their community.
A local manufacturer purchased over $16,000 in downtown gift certificates to thank his essential employees who were responding to the supply demands of PPE. A downtown brewery created a family “meals-to-go” option for the parents both homeschooling and working from home. Another downtown business is having weekly gift card giveaways to thank the businesses that support them—the food suppliers, the breweries and distilleries, the service suppliers.
And just like our small businesses the Erie Downtown Partnership had to adjust rapidly to the pandemic. Our team developed a Main Street Relief + Recovery Plan, which included a Relief + Recovery Grant. We worked with the Erie County Gaming Revenue Authority to reallocate funds earmarked for façade improvements to support relief and recovery efforts of our downtown businesses. We surveyed and engaged businesses to learn what their needs were. To date, we’ve deployed almost $55,000 to assist 19 small businesses. We are working to find more funding to continue these recovery efforts over the next several months and advocate for the needs of downtown’s small businesses leveraging our partner network.
And with the temporary closing of public spaces and some businesses, the downtown experience itself has also changed. Quickly. As a placemaking organization, there is a challenge in creating experiences that promote the downtown as a special place. We shifted some of our on-site activation to virtual activation hosting weekly “Stay Home, Jam Together” live music concerts. These concerts were produced by a local business and shared on the platforms of many partners’ social media channels. The promotion of local musicians and the creation of a virtual community building experience has proven to be very beneficial. The campaign we co-created with lead partners, #WeGotThisErie, helped bring people together to celebrate Erie’s commitment to thrive through this pandemic. Community building is increasingly hard when you can’t physically be together, but in the words of our events manager, Dave Tamulonis, “Social distancing doesn’t have to mean social disconnection”. And we continue to look for those opportunities to provide social connection every day.
As communities move from red to yellow to green in this pandemic there will be a need to enhance the downtown experience and lessen the pain points of consumers. They may have to wait in lines for seating at their favorite restaurant. Reservations will be at a premium due to limited seating capacity. Outdoor spaces will have to be re-imagined to accommodate the many more “to-go” orders. People want to feel safe and excited to be downtown as they walk from their parking space to their destination. What is the message we will put out? What stories will be told as people begin to reopen and customers come back to downtown?
Like many of our Main Street colleagues we have used this time to think about how we support the commercial core and what that will mean for us over then next few years. What does our business continuity plan look like? What kind of support do our businesses need now and over the next six, 18, and 24 months? How do we collectively build consumer confidence that our commercial core is ready to be open for business?
The one thing that has been clear through all of this is that this is our time to show up. And the only wrong answer is to not be bold. You have to take a chance and do things that may be uncomfortable or that you don’t feel entirely prepared to do. This is our chance to improve and prove, more than ever, that Main Street communities are better positioned to weather this storm.
Oil City
by Kathy Bailey
This is our Community Heartbeat. Our heart beats for our medical professionals, police, fire and first responders, who are on the job to keep us safe. It beats for our front-line grocery & pharmacy workers, food preparers & delivery persons, and suppliers who provide us with the essentials we need. It beats for the small businesses who bring unique goods and services to our lives; yet are struggling to make ends meet right now. It beats for those out of work. It beats for the financial and human resource professionals working to decipher and process various assistance programs for the masses. It beats for the educators, students, parents and school systems all learning to teach and learn from home. It beats for elected officials, municipal workers and community leaders who are trying to keep their communities running smoothly. For the farmers, the faithful, everyone separated from friends and family, and all those affected by this pandemic, both near and far. Our heart will keep beating strong. Program credit: Gary Dittman
Although Oil City has been fortunate to have so far avoided significant community spread of the COVID-19 virus itself, the economic and emotional impact of the pandemic is with us.
Here are some of our stories from the heart:
In 2017, the Oil City Main Street Program and the Oil Region Alliance installed color-changing LED lights on the Center Street Bridge – the lights are on every evening from dusk until dawn, and light “shows” can be created for different seasons, holidays, and often for causes as requested by various community organizations. In late March, we wanted to create a light show to correspond to the pandemic, but not be a symbol of the virus itself. The one thing that ties all of us together is a heartbeat – so we created a “Community Heartbeat” light show, to show how our heart beats for first responders, front line workers, and so many more people and their various changing roles. The “Community Heartbeat” light show was uploaded on April 13. We posted video of the show on our Facebook page on April 16, which reached 8,405 people and resulted in 1,508 engagements, 131 reactions, 108 shares and 8 comments.
During a Zoom meeting in early May with some of our small business owners, discussion revealed the need for positive messaging. Inspired by the “World of Hearts” carried out by downtown West Chester and other communities, we decided to follow suit and put paper hearts in storefront windows – to show love for our community, promote unity, and spread a little cheer. To put a local spin on it, we called it “Oil City’s Got Heart". By mid-May, downtown merchants, residents and others had jumped on the bandwagon and we were surprised at how the campaign took off. We still need to do a collage of all the photos, but in the meantime the campaign can be seen on our Facebook page and was covered by the Oil City Derrick and ExploreVenango.com.
Other Stories from Oil City
What tugs at our heartstrings the most, is the cool things that other businesses and organizations have done to help others (completely without our involvement). In March at the very beginning of the shutdown, Collect 76 (a downtown comic/collectibles shop) donated 400-500 kid-friendly comic books to providers of free lunches, to encourage kids to enjoy reading. That same weekend, The Printer’s Cabinet & Curiosities partnered with an area florist to simply give away 50 free bouquets of flowers on a Sunday afternoon to anyone who could use a little cheer. In April, The Oil City Rotary Club purchased lunch from downtown restaurants for the staff of a local nursing home. Christ Episcopal Church recently purchased downtown restaurant gift certificates for all employees of the City of Oil City, who have worked diligently throughout the shutdown period and beyond. Several of our restaurants have “paid it forward” by donating to others. It goes to show that through all of this, Oil City’s Got Heart!
Easton
by Kim Kmetz
As CLOSED signs went up on the doors of small businesses and restaurants in Easton, PA, as the COVID-19 pandemic picked up speed, it was clear something needed to be done — and fast.
The Greater Easton Development Partnership (GEDP), the nonprofit parent organization of Easton Main Street Initiative (EMSI), pivoted quickly and focused resources on lifting up the businesses of Downtown Easton. A web designer was pulled in to create supporteaston.com, and staff members contacted businesses to see who would offer curbside pick-up, delivery, online classes or workouts, and online shopping. As neighbors were trying to figure out what was open and what was closed, GEDP had a comprehensive site listing exactly that. The site was shared on social channels, to local media and served as a resource that united the community and promoted small businesses. Each of GEDP’s programs began using #supporteaston in posts, and encouraged others to do the same. To complement the campaign, EMSI asked business owners to submit videos encouraging customers to #supporteaston. A graphic designer compiled the videos into one Support Easton video, which to date has been shared 213 times and reached 23,560 people.
In the following weeks, the supporteaston.com site was expanded to include pages listing resources for residents and business owners. A page was added for donations, which were used in a subsequent campaign called Beauty of Easton. Through that effort, customers could purchase a gift card from their favorite local salon or barbershop to support them during their closures, and receive a Downtown Easton reward card funded through donations on supporteaston.com. A local brewery also created a Beauty of Easton Double IPA, with a portion of proceeds aimed at the campaign, and matched by a corporate partner.
EMSI also worked to produce Easton Helping Easton Technical Assistance workshops. The free workshops utilize the expert knowledge from local marketers, web and SEO professionals to share information with fellow business owners as they move to online shopping platforms and as they reshape their business model to comply with new regulations. EMSI is also working to provide Easton Helping Easton Micro-Grants (up to $500) to help businesses work to improve their e-commerce sites and put together a digital marketing plan.
GEDP also created a second video — this one featuring restaurant owners urging customers to use #CurbsideFirst and place orders directly through a restaurant instead of a third party delivery app. The video was in response to several restaurant owners coming forward to talk about the hefty chunk of fees those apps were taking out of each order, as profit margins were already floundering. The video has been shared 315 times and reached 42,282 people.
Lebanon
by Amy Kopecky
Downtown Lebanon First Fridays
Since the start of Covid-19 Downtown Lebanon Main Street has had to postpone many of the in-person events that were scheduled for our community during 2020. Due to crisis there was no way to have the public Downtown for our First Friday which is an event that is coordinated monthly through a partnership between Downtown Lebanon Main Street and Lebanon Valley Council on the Arts.
The two organizations began discussing how they could host a ‘Virtual First Friday’ that would still get the community involved from their homes without going out in public. Each month we encourage Lebanon County residents to grab take out from their favorite downtown restaurant and then head home and sign into Facebook to listen to live music and view artwork submitted by members of the Arts Council.
As part of our Virtual First Friday on April 3rd, we asked the community to participate in a 'Chalk Walk' at their homes, whether it be on the sidewalk or their driveway. Residents took pictures of their drawings and shared them with us to be featured on our Facebook page during First Friday. Throughout the day we had nine submissions that we shared on our ‘First Friday Downtown Lebanon’ Facebook Page. For our May 1st First Friday we had a ‘Super Hero’ theme in which we encouraged the community to post a picture as them dressed as their favorite super hero to be featured on our Facebook Page. Downtown Lebanon worked with members of the Lebanon City Police Department and WellSpan Good Samaritan Hospital to get pictures of their staff who were featured as our ‘local super heroes’.
The participation for our Virtual First Fridays has been incredible. Downtown Lebanon Main Street has been featured on WGAL and ABC 27s Good Day PA! Because the restriction for large public gatherings, we canceled our June Lego Night event, with bins of Legos donated by a local architecture firm Beers & Hoffman, and turned it into a virtual event.Downtown Lebanon Main Street created an event via Facebook where kids could submit pictures of Lego structures. We asked that their structure either replicate one of our downtown buildings or that they make their own ‘downtown’ using Legos. Contest winners receive Lego Store e-Gift Cards. While we are excited for First Friday to become an outdoor public event again, we are thrilled that our community has rallied behind us and has shown their support during this time.
Feeding the Frontliners Larry Bowman, a former CEO of the Lebanon Valley Chamber of Commerce, saw a story on the news about a community effort to feed local healthcare workers and thought it was a great project to try out in Lebanon. Bowman was able to secure $30,000 from the Lebanon County Commissioners through their hotel tax grant which helps support tourism throughout Lebanon County. This money was then used to help support our local restaurants who are currently struggling after dine-in service was shut down and restricted in mid-March.
The project began on Wednesday, May 6th and ended on Thursday June 4th. Throughout the month more than 20 businesses were able to benefit from the grant from the Commissioners and more than 1,700 meals were distributed by local volunteers to healthcare workers throughout Lebanon County. Downtown Lebanon businesses who participated in the program included; Wrinkle and Boon, The Downtown Lounge, La Placita, Quesa Dee’as, The Timeless Café, Dominos Pizza and Gus Deracos Italian Sandwich’s. This income to the downtown was greater than $4,000!
This project was a group effort between The United Way of Lebanon County, Downtown Lebanon Main Street, Lebanon Family Health Services, Larry Bowman and the Lebanon County Commissioners. It was an amazing program with a giant community impact!