We began working to launch Lynn Main Streets in May, 2019, with the goal of revitalizing our historic downtown through community-driven economic development.
When we finally launched — on March 13 —Massachusetts was just entering lockdown, and we had to quickly switch gears. Though our long-term goals remain the same, we have devoted our initial efforts to helping businesses and community members navigate the effects of the pandemic.
One of our first initiatives was a mutual aid network, which helps connect people in need with volunteers and local nonprofits that can help. We identified an exhaustive list of agencies that individuals and businesses can turn to, and produced an essential document that the city relied on when it put together a coronavirus task force.
We also partnered with the United Way of Massachusetts Bay and Merrimack Valley to start the Lynn Community Care Fund, which provides emergency help to individuals and families affected by the coronavirus. To date, the fund has distributed more than $500,000 to cover rent, food, utilities, childcare, medications and other basic necessities.
We are also hard at work on several initiatives to support local businesses. That includes helping Lynn’s entrepreneurs navigate a complicated web of relief programs and apply for grant funding. With nearly 50 different languages spoken and a substantial number of businesses owned by first-generation immigrants, we have made it a priority to reach out to a broad range of publications that can help convey our message throughout the community.
While Lynn’s small businesses have all been affected by the pandemic, the community’s restaurants have been hit the hardest. To support them, we helped build the Food For Thought program, which helps connect people who need food with restaurants, grocers, local farms and food pantries that can supply meals.
The project serves the dual purpose of keeping local restaurants in business and benefiting the community. In partnership with Mutual Aid Lynn, Mass Coalition for the Homeless/Lynn Community Health Center, Partners In Health, and the Lynn Housing Authority the program has served more than 4,000 people.
As restaurants begin to reopen, we are working on another initiative that taps into this community’s vibrant arts scene. We plan to transform outdoor dining areas with the help of local artists, who will paint murals on the jersey barriers that divide patios, create umbrellas that display poetry in the rain, and build living moss walls to beautify the scene and purify the air.
Lynn’s local maker space, the Brickyard Collaborative, is supporting the project by making credit card disinfecting machines, masks, shields, and handwashing stations. Our “creative streetaries” are designed to bring people back downtown and support some of the businesses hardest hit by the pandemic. To fund this initiative, we are partnering with the city to apply for a Shared Streets and Spaces grant from the Massachusetts Department of Transportation, and MassDevlopment’s Resurgent Places program.
In the short few months that we’ve launched, we believe Lynn Main Streets has already proven to be an essential ally to the city’s most vulnerable residents and businesses—and an advocate for this special place we call home. We are dedicated to our long-term mission to bring the community out of their silos, give everyone a seat at the table and reinvigorate our downtown. Looking to the future, we intend to continue our work toward that mission—pivoting quickly to meet the most urgent community needs, as we have shown we can over the last few months.
As a member of the Main Street America network, we also bring the experience of a nationwide program with a 30-year history of strengthening communities through preservation-based economic development. The Main Street network—which supports some of the nation’s most vulnerable small businesses—also has a proven track record of generating strong financial returns. In 2019 alone, local Main Street groups leveraged an average of $30 in public and private investment for every dollar spent on the program.
As our city begins to recover—both physically and financially—we believe our goals and the work we do will continue to be critically important to Lynn. While all elected officials will have to make hard decisions in future budget negotiations, it will be imperative to recognize that recovery depends on local connector organizations like ours. Cutting funding for such programs will have a detrimental outcome with the potential to exacerbate inequities resulting in lost jobs, shuttered storefronts and vacant downtowns, and reductions to state and local revenue.
Now more than ever, lwmakers must support historic communities like ours, and the small businesses, artists and entrepreneurs that make them unique. Lynn Main Streets is a critical partner to the community—and we are devoted to our mission of being an advocate and an ally for this special place, both now and in the future.
Tia Cole is Lynn Main Streets director of community engagement and Lynn Main Streets co-founder. Carolyn Cole (no relation) is city of Lynn cultural coordinator/CDBG subrecipient administrator and Lynn Main Streets co-founder. Samantha McHugh is the Greater Lynn Chamber of Commerce membership and events coordinator and Lynn Main Streets co-founder.ºº
