LAST Words
Ann Owens is a writer, creative genius, entrepreneur, mother, and wife who enjoys pondering what makes the world click.
Creating a Vibrant Community it takes all hands on deck to keep the gears turning If you know me personally at all, you know how much I value a sense of community and how much I believe you should become involved, invest, and take an active role in where you live. Karl and I began our personal community journey in 2001 when we invested in a building downtown and immediately fell in love with being a part of the historic district family. Through the next several years, I volunteered on boards and committees, assisted in organizing and working events, and began to understand the value of loving where you live. It was an incredibly fulfilling time in my life. In 2004, Karl and I had a temporary moment of insanity and purchased The PAL Theatre in downtown Vidalia. Collectively, we knew as much about running a movie theatre as individually I knew about peeing on a tree. All we were armed with was a growing passion for historic preservation and a deep desire to be community builders–and to us, that was all the qualifications we needed. Needless to say, we bit off way more than we could chew, but we chewed hard and consistently for 10 solid years. It was our desire to bring something new and a sense of pride in what our area had to offer in the way of the arts. It was a beautiful run in many ways. Sadly, the support was just never what we had hoped for, and we could no longer continue to keep
the doors open. In 2014, we finally walked away… disillusioned, heartbroken, and feeling bitter. My flame and passion were gone, and I washed my hands of all volunteer and entrepreneurial efforts. As fate would have it, in February of 2020, through my employment with the Greater Vidalia® Chamber (GVC) and The Toombs County Development Authority (TCDA), we brought in a speaker by the name of Quint Studer. Quint was instrumental in turning around his city of Pensacola, Florida, and had written a book entitled Building A Vibrant Community / How Citizen-Powered Change is Reshaping America. He surveyed our community, made a site visit, conducted a workshop attended by 150+ people, and formulated a roadmap for what we needed to do as citizens to grow and prosper. I am not kidding when I say I had a secret crush on this man who was 11 years my senior and who turned an entire city around. He had a vision and he made it happen, and I was just stupidly in awe of him. I read his book twice and everything came back to me, only this time I was older, wiser, and much more experienced. Also, and probably most importantly, I began to realize how naïve I had been about what is important. A Vibrant Community is made up of much more than pretty buildings, onions, and fun events for adults and children; so much more. That alone will not ensure the well-being of our citizens of all ages, that alone will not keep and/or bring our young people back to stay and thrive here, and that alone does little to improve lasting and overall quality of life. Recently, we held our second workshop to reengage the Vibrant
Community efforts and, following Quint’s roadmap, we are asking citizens to engage in one or more of 4 gears that will take us to the next level – Economic Development, Placemaking (Downtowns), Civic Education & Engagement, or Early Learning & Education. We are looking for leaders, movers and shakers, people with passions and desires to make a difference in where we live. We should be focusing on making sure pre-k enrollment numbers go up and that by 3rd grade, our babies are reading. Let us address teen pregnancy, workforce issues, childcare, housing, and mental wellness. And while we are at it, wouldn’t it be cool to have a dog park and bicycle paths? These elements, and many more, are what make up a Vibrant Community. So, I ask you, where is your passion? Do you see yourself turning one of these gears? Do you have time, a skillset, resources, or just a heart to dive in with us? I mean, it’s cool if you don’t see yourself plugging into one of these areas, but it would be even more cool if you did because we can accomplish anything together, and it truly does take a village. Through the help of Georgia Power, we have created a Community Dashboard which gives you 18 different sets of data on where we stand in categories such as education, wellness and workforce. The results of our community survey, Quint’s site visit report, roadmap, and the dashboard can be found on our website at www.greatervidaliachamber.com > Locate & Expand > Demographics. Scroll down until you see “Vibrant Community Documents”.
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