Vision Long Island Highlights Local Leaders

These in-depth interviews hosted by Eric Alexander featuring a broad range of Local Leaders on Vimeo are fantastic.

Check ’em out.

FOR MORE: Follow the Vision Long Island Facebook Page and the Long Island Main Street Alliance for news and information, much of which is particularly aimed at helping Long Island’s small businesses.

They’ve also got great stuff on YouTube covering and exceptionally broad range of local issues. Check it out.

Main Street News is a Must-Read

We’ve said it before, we’re going to keep saying it:

THIS IS VALUABLE AND IMPORTANT.

Vision Long Island and the Long Island Main Street Alliance continue to release daily issues of their new Main Street News.

This is a grounded, productive, community-oriented force for those who care about the economic aspects of this crisis. It’s sobering, comprehensive and helpful.

There’s news about what’s happening, what’s open, resources, proposed legislation and whatever else they can find to help folks weather the storm. They have also added a “Good News” component that highlights folks doing the right thing.

Check out their website. Follow their Facebook.

Vision is one of our strongest advocates for Long Island downtowns, and has been generally connecting diverse local stakeholders to learn and work together for the betterment of our communities for over 20 years. We strongly believe they are a huge reason why there’s as much healthy communication and collaboration in the name of true public service and community development on Long Island as there is today. We are grateful.

Support Local Business & Community Groups

Main St, Northport

Photo of Northport Village by Katheryn Laible

This is a really tough time to be a small business or a not-for-profit organization. While everyone is rightly encouraged to stay home and keep their hands off the world, bills are still coming due and people are wondering what’s going to happen to their income.

When you see one of your most go-getting survivors of a friend seeking donations for her employer, you have to stop and think — What are we going to do for our people here?

Vision Long Island is one of our region’s strongest advocates for Main Street. They have just released their first Main Street News offering a great guide to what people can do in terms of personal initiative, resources and advocacy.

Another strong advocate for local business that has been posting good stuff on their facebook page is the Long Island Business Council.

In general, some ideas that have seemed good to us include:

  1. Buy Gift Certificates. Consider simply sending a donation to your favorite local business
  2. Realize small businesses are often better for social distancing because they tend to be less crowded. They may even have that hard to find supply!
  3. Restaurants are closing, but can still do takeout/delivery. Even for alcohol!
  4. Realize many of these places care about their own health, your health and the community more than most ever realized. Know that many local shops are going out of their way to safely keep on keeping on — Book Revue in Huntington, for example is offering curbside service and even delivery. We’ve heard report of local hair stylists all but wrapping their stylists in bubble wrap. Look up their website/social media. Even if they aren’t advertising it, call them to inquire!
  5. Special events are hugely important for organizations. Had an event cancelled? Send a donation! You can check our newsletter archives to find 100s of great local organizations
  6. Strongly consider supporting policy proposals that directly support individuals and small businesses. While they are going out of their way to come up with creative means of keeping going, there is only so much they can do,
  7. Just be kind — Especially to the cashiers, service providers and others working through this. Just. Be. Kind.
 
 

We Love Our Librarians! Nominating Helen Crosson

Helen Crosson

We are grateful to know great librarians. Recently, we’ve thoroughly enjoyed working with Ellen Druda, who is doing incredible things for the Coltrane Home Project. We also deeply appreciate Susan Goldberg, who’s known to have people who happen to stand next to her smiling, and who has built a library for Elwood. We were privileged to work with Michelle Lauer-Bader on crafting “Community Conversations,” and have caught her around town helping out Long Island Cares since her own retirement. Recently, we had the opportunity to nominate one for national recognition through the “I Love My Librarian” award. For that, we chose Helen Crosson, who we find embodies and amplifies the spirit of the American Library.

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Ron Stein: Long Island Renaissance Man

As the founder of LI’s premier Smart Growth organization Vision Long Island, a champion of the endeavor to advance John and Alice Coltrane’s legacies, Ron Stein has a tremendous knack for getting great things started.

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