Valdosta Main Street received a special holiday blessing this year as the department was recently awarded $10,000 in grant money that was then matched by a generous donation from Georgia Power. In total, Valdosta Main Street received $20,000, which they plan to use in a marketing campaign in the upcoming year.

Valdosta was one of five Georgia cities to receive grant money from the Georgia Main Street Program through the National Main Street Center. The cities of Thomasville, Tifton, Tybee Island, Athens, and Valdosta were each awarded the $10,000 grant as a COVID recovery effort. 

The Main Street Office plans to use this grant funding towards a marketing campaign that Hill hopes will encourage people to spend within the local community. "We submitted the grant for a digital marketing campaign we are going to do to drive foot traffic back to our brick-and-mortar stores downtown," said Hill. They have already begun this campaign with a few holiday commercials currently running on local television channels. Still, they plan to ramp up efforts at the start of the New Year and those downtimes when people aren't spending much after the holidays. Hill hopes that this campaign will shine a light on the importance of shopping locally throughout the year as it helps our local economy to flourish.

So far, downtown business owners have responded well to the campaign, and Main Street anticipates much more excitement as it progresses. Hill says, "I think they are going to be super excited about this, and are going to appreciate that the Georgia Main Street and the National Main Street saw that we could use those funds." Both Hill and Main Street Coordinator Rachel Thrasher are excited to create some fun new digital marketing content for the downtown businesses.