What is the secret sauce that makes up Mount Vernon?
It is citizens that are engaged and come together on a winter night to review data on the economic vitality of our town.
It is citizens who are open to having discussions about what festivals work for them, what ones don’t and give advice to others on how to improve things in the future.
It is a community that continues pushing for improvements and moving forward.
Mount Vernon-Lisbon Community Development Group released a bunch of information on a survey conducted of uptown businesses taken last summer, which highlighted the ways MVLCDG is helping businesses.
And there was terrific discussion throughout the evening on the data, on what people saw and ways they could impact the success of the community.
A few points stood out to us as important for this community. All the businesses in Mount Vernon and Lisbon are in this together, making our communities thrive. Yes, we have service businesses located along Business 30 and off Hwy. 30 coming into town that also benefit from the activities and festivals in uptown Mount Vernon. Those restaurants are just as busy on festival weekends as restaurants in the uptown. We really need to get out of the mindset of the businesses by the highway not having a vested interest in this community.
Like Darin Vig with Lynch Ford-Chevrolet noted to many in attendance – They are an economic driver in this community, with more than 100 people coming to the community on a daily basis to their business. He outlined how businesses in the uptown could help use Lynch’s waiting room as a space to advertise their amenities in the uptown. Lynch employees can only do so much to entice people to check out the community on their own.
MVLCDG is also amping up their social media presence, asking Anna Wilson of The Local to help lead that change and share. Wilson has been in the role for a few weeks now, but has goals for the position and how they drive engagement across social media to get people excited about the work CDG is doing as well as local success stories and businesses you’ll find in this community.
It was a truly wonderful presentation by the economic vitality committee of MVLCDG and gave a lot of ways businesses in our community can collaborate and work together, and a very fruitful discussion on all that entails.