As we begin to explore the idea of creating a county-wide Main Street program, I’m developing a plan for connecting with our community so the best ideas and most enthusiastic partners rise to the top.

My first filter in establishing partners is finding people who Believe (with a capital B)!

Spend 50 seconds on social media and you’ll find oodles of people who don’t believe things can be accomplished…or changed…or even started. Those aren’t my people.

A person willing to Believe is naturally resilient, hopeful, and positive. Those traits are foundational to success because there are lots of opportunities along the way to give up, feel hopeless, and be negative. Keeping Belief front and center keeps daily hiccups in perspective. And surrounding yourself with other Believers further inspires and energizes everyone’s efforts.

I’ve thought this way for a long time – that’s why, when I ran for City Council in 2014, my slogan was “Believe in Brooksville.” Though we were still deep in the consequences of the 2008 Great Recession, I firmly Believed in Brooksville’s greatest assets – its people and its character – and I wanted to help her become her best version of herself.

Serving on Council was SO much fun (well, mostly) and a tremendous time of learning all the facets of local government and best ways to get the community engaged. It prepared me well for my next adventure as Executive Director of Brooksville Main Street.

Guess what I discovered the foundation of making a Main Street succeed was? You guessed it – Belief! When I took the job, only my board and a handful of other people believed in the program. And an unfortunate number of people DISbelieved. It took a couple years of hard work by those few individuals to gain new Believers through successful events like our Christmas on Main and projects like the Florida Mermaid Trail.

When the pandemic hit in 2020 and the economic uncertainty was palpable, the Board decided it was time to loudly declare their Belief. They spent several thousand dollars purchasing over 40 “Believe in Brooksville” banners and then hung them all over town. My favorite memory from that time was of my husband and Jimmy Kimbrough trying to figure out how to place a banner on Jimmy’s building across from City Hall. I watched below on the sidewalk while they each hung out a second floor window, tossing rope back and forth in a basket. We then created our first scavenger hunt, encouraging people to find as many of the banners as they could. We got lots of photos of people with the banners, with captions telling us why they liked the business in each photo.

As we close out 2023, it’s hard to imagine how much the Belief climate has changed in such a short time. It is a true and beautiful testament to how much is possible when a handful of people risk Belief.

I can’t wait to see who will prove to be our core Believers for Hernando County as we launch our explorations in 2024.