Partners for Better Communities (Virginia DHCD's Podcast)

In this episode of the podcast, Buena Vista, Virginia, business owners join Main Street Buena Vista's Jen Carpenter for a discussion of the power of partnership when small businesses, community volunteers, and town government work together for a stronger business district and a vibrant community. Guests include the BeeVe's Madeleine Mercer, Asunder Coffee Roaster's Stephanie McCoy and Leaf and Lore's Stephanie Hardy.

Join Harrisonburg's Andrea Dono and Hilton Village's JB Crowley for a conversation on how to foster  "Main Streets for All" with a focus on visitor accessibility, continual improvement, and learning together across the Virginia Main Street Network.

Friends of Old Town Executive Director Brady Cloven joins the podcast for a conversation about Winchester,  the longest standing Virginia Main Street community. Catch up on community progress and the leadership that's making it happen.

Luray Downtown Initiative Program Director Jackie Wood joins the podcast for a discussion of the business support and resiliency muscles that strengthened as a result of community work during the pandemic. 

Hopewell Downtown Partnership Executive Director Drew Dayberry joins the podcast to share how natural assets and entrepreneurial energy are shaping the future of this industrial riverside city.

Downtown Wytheville's Charlie Jones shares his Main Street journey on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the Virginia Main Street program. The Wytheville native was the nonprofit's first youth intern and one of the first youth board members. After graduating from James Madison University, Charlie returned to Wytheville and has now spent nearly four years as the assistant director of Downtown Wytheville advancing the Main Street strategy. He has a lot to say about the community's progress and hopes for the future as well as the ongoing civic engagement processes they're using to get there.

Tune in for a special conversation with Antonio Miller of Downtown Ashland Association

Tune in for a special conversation with Kyle Meyer of Virginia Main Street.

A special episode with Rebecca Rowe and Courtney Mailey diving into Virginia Main Street.

Cindy Davis spent her 30-year career in the coding industry as a trailblazer and pioneer, making invaluable contributions throughout the commonwealth and beyond. Hear about her journey as a woman in the male-dominated coding industry, her 12 years with DHCD, the mentors that inspired her along the way, and the important things she learned across her illustrious career.

Holly Lesko, Business Continuity Team Program Manager for the New River Valley Regional Commission has spent three decades in the region, building relationships and exploring community engagement through storytelling, civic participation, and public health.  Learn more about Holly in this episode and at the links below: New River Valley Regional Commission Healthy by Design Youth Digital Storytelling Project Community Heart & Soul NRV Business Continuity Team Holly joined NRVRC in October 2020 and has been supporting the BCT with business and school outreach throughout the pandemic.  She is now helping to position businesses, governments, and communities to be prepared and more resilient to future impacts to health and economy. She has lived and worked in the New River Valley since 1989 and this position is a true return to her roots as her first position after graduate school was with the NRVRC as an economic development planner in 1992. Holly has worked with communities and organizations in the New River Valley region and across the Commonwealth for the past 30+ years in the areas of comprehensive planning, leadership development, economic development and enhancement, educational training and curriculum development, public health assessment and program delivery, grant writing, facilitation, assessment, and evaluation as well as grassroots community organizing. Her focus in community development is on long-range goal development with community health assessments evaluation tools to create new ways of viewing and approaching issues and concepts through inclusive and diverse community engagement. In previous work at Virginia Tech, she served as the Principal Investigator for the Healthy NRV project in partnership with the NRVRC with Robert Wood Johnson Foundation funding. This project was a community-based participatory research program focused on assessing the impacts of health factors in community development and engaging youth in local communities in community health conversations utilizing her skills in community engagement, inclusive partnership-centered programming, as well as digital storytelling and gathering. Additionally, Holly has worked extensively with federal, state, and local funding agencies and has helped local organizations and communities secure over $6,000,000 in local, state and federal aid to further development and community projects in the region.  Holly holds a Masters in Urban and Regional Planning from Virginia Tech.

Kathleen Frazier, FAIA, of Staunton, Virginia's Frazier Associates drew upon a career in preservation based downtown revitalization to create one of Virginia Main Street resource-rich technical sheets. Hear Kathy in conversation with staff member Zachary Whitlow on the nuts, bolts, and benefits of upper story housing as part of your revitalization strategy.

DHCD staff member Melissa Mason sits down with Mathews County Broadband Advisory Board Chair Judy Rowe on attaining "reliable, high speed affordable access to universal broadband for all of Mathews County by 2025." In this rural area, the volunteer commitment to audacious and important goals is making this quickly working to make this a reality. Listen in on this inspiring conversation on the power of the tenacious citizen.

This year we're profiling some of Virginia's local administrators, public servants who are often behind the scenes making things happen with creativity, passion, and care for the place and people surrounding them. "I like being able to do all kinds of things in one day," says Scottsville Town Administrator Matt Lawless who talked to us about the variety of challenges, joys, and rewards of serving a small town with a historic district, flood risks, a resilient community network, strong regional partnerships, and eyes on the future.  "I see my work as understanding what the community wants to see happen, identifying the parts of it that government is good at, and then find volunteers and get other people excited.  How can we do this together?  It works better that way, and it's more fun than just paying for things with taxes."  Hear more about the fun right here or wherever you stream your podcasts. Explore Scottsville online and then plan a visit. https://www.scottsville.org/visit/ 

Crowdfunding can attract capital to new and growing businesses, and the "return on crowd" is measured in much more than dollars. In the final Creating Community Vitality podcast, crowdfunding expert Bill Huston provides tips and strategies for effectively attracting dedicated customers and investors. Learn more about Pittsburgh's Honeycomb Credit. Learn more about the American Dream Marketplace. Get the full, year-long Creating Community Vitality series of webinars and podcasts here. Bill Huston educates entrepreneurs, nonprofits and small businesses on how to raise community capital using seed and investment crowdfunding. He has managed dozens of successful crowdfunding campaigns globally throughout his 8 years in the crowdfunding industry. In 2014, INC. Magazine named him a top 19 global crowdfunding expert. Huston provides community capital consulting and coaching that focuses on social entrepreneurs, community-level real estate development and nonprofits that are creating businesses to solve social issues. He focuses on building engaged and excited crowds that will allow NonProfits & Social Enterprises to successfully participate in the community capital and Locavesting economy.

Kirsten Moore opened Magpie–a breakfast and lunch diner-inspired restaurant and bakery, and The Perch at Magpie–a coworking space for small businesses, freelancers, and remote workers—in July 2020 in the middle of the pandemic lockdown. Having started an extensive historic renovation of an old auto service building in September of 2019 to house the businesses, it was a train that couldn’t be stopped once the pandemic hit. As it turned out, it wasn’t the worst possible time to open, but rather the perfect time to open. An entrepreneur and food writer with a background in design and marketing, Magpie is the culmination of many aspects of her career and synthesis of her passions.  Get the full Creating Community Vitality Series here.

By layering weatherization and energy efficiency resources, DHCD's new Weatherization Deferral Repair Program will help more people in need and help reduce greenhouse gas emissions. In this episode marking Energy Awareness Month and the 45th Annual Weatherization Day, DHCD staff member Jennifer Wares shares her path in energy efficiency and how DHCD and its partners are improving homes and lives through a systems approach to home repair and assistance.

Public spaces – ones that are truly equitable and inclusive – are essential for creating community vitality. Our continued health and racial pandemics prove the urgency of more in-depth analysis and thinking for what these spaces need to and must be. Get to know the National Main Street Center's Lindsey Wallace as she tours us through national examples as communities make the most of their public spaces. Lindsey Wallace has over twelve years of experience in historic preservation, community engagement, and project management. As Director of Strategic Projects and Design Services for the National Main Street Center (NMSC), she leads a variety of projects and partnerships, including the NPS Main Street Façade Improvement Grant Program, NPS Disaster Preparedness and Resilience Program and the Historic Commercial District Revolving Loan Fund Program. Wallace teaches the Advanced Principles of Quality Design course through the Main Street America Institute (MSAI), and, as part of the NMSC field staff team, she focuses on design related and placemaking initiatives and content. Grab all the webinars and podcasts in the year long Creating Community Vitality Series here.

More people and places can benefit from interconnected place-focused policies and programs. That's a key idea of transformative placemaking, says Brookings Institution's Jennifer S. Vey in this episode of Partners for Better Communities.  And those strategies have to be rooted in the assets of local residents and businesses. "If the leadership is dominated by a small group of people, even if they are ostensibly acting on behalf " says Vay, "there will be a mismatch that causes conflict. There will be too many people who's preferences and need aren't represented." Vey is a senior fellow and the director of the Anne T. and Robert M. Bass Center for Transformative Placemaking at the Brookings Institution. Her work primarily explores how place-based policies and practices can support economic, social and built environments that benefit more people in more places. She is the author or co-author of numerous Brookings publications, including “Transformative placemaking: A framework to create connected, vibrant, and inclusive communities,” “Where jobs are concentrating and why it matters to cities and regions,” “Assessing your innovation district: A how-to guide” and “Building from strength: Creating opportunity in Greater Baltimore’s next economy.” She also co-edited Retooling for Growth: Building a 21st Century Economy in America’s Older Industrial Areas, published by the American Assembly and Brookings Institution Press. Sign up for the Center's newsletter here. Find all the podcasts and webinars in the Creating Community Vitality series here.

We're talking support for food-based businesses and small scale manufacturing in the August installment of the Creating Community Vitality series.  Bok Vocational High School was built in 1936 and accommodated 3,000 students from across Philadelphia studying subjects like wallpapering, cosmetology, auto mechanics, bricklaying, and more. In 2013, the school closed due to decreased enrollment and deferred maintenance. Today it's a hub of more than 200 businesses serving a neighborhood in a new and exciting way. Lindsey Scannapieco is the Managing Partner of SCOUT, a multi-disciplinary design and development firm with a background in transforming vacant and underutilized spaces in creative ways. Scannapieco speaks about the adaptive reuse project repurposing the former classrooms of a historic school into space for makers, nonprofits, small businesses, and artists.  Shortly after, SCOUT took ownership of the building, and, over the past five years, the building has become a hub for makers, entrepreneurs, and small businesses. Check out BOK here. Check out other offerings in the Creating Community Vitality series.