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We are extremely pleased to welcome Dana to The Urban Conservancy. Dana has worked with us in the past and served as a founding member of the Advisory Board of our Stay Local! project. Dana brings to The Urban Conservancy substantial management and program experience along with her wonderful energy and enthusiasm. We could not have hoped for a better collaborator!

Ed and Geoff

Hello from the New StayLocal! Coordinator

My name is Dana Eness and I am very much looking forward to continuing the work of the Urban Conservancy in their efforts to support small, locally-owned businesses. I first became involved with this project in 2003 when I joined the Stay Local! board. I agreed to serve because I supported the mission of The Urban Conservancy and because, like so many of you who call New Orleans home, I cherish the lifestyle a city of small businesses affords me: strolling down to Oak Street on a Saturday morning to buy a paper and a cup of coffee, getting a hair cut, picking up prescriptions or cat food or a new pair of shoes. Even my dentist and the public library are within walking distance.

Until August of 2005, the Stay Local! board was in the process of identifying major threats to small, locally owned businesses including big box encroachment, endemic poverty, crime and low literacy among the working-age population. We were developing an organization where member businesses would benefit from shared resources including low-cost marketing services (for example, a web-based directory designed to drive consumers to locally-owned businesses), as well as a fortified business-to-business network.

Katrina has dramatically changed the scope of the challenges facing small businesses. While the old challenges remain, more immediate concerns take precedence. The job now is not only to retain the small businesses that help flavor our city’s rich culture, but first to regain those small businesses stymied by Katrina-related obstacles. Business owners today are preoccupied with rebuilding damaged physical structures (often while simultaneously rebuilding their homes), navigating through complicated insurance issues, a labor shortage, a drastic downturn in tourism, and a seriously compromised metropolitan infrastructure as a result of a diminished tax base.

This new environment has changed the focus of Stay Local’s plan of action for this coming year. Our intention is to be instrumental in helping businesses citywide regain their footing and prosper by serving as a liaison between local businesses and economic and revitalization opportunities available to them.

Nowadays, there are gaps in my Saturday morning routine. Double M Feedstore is no longer open at its Oak St. location, so I have to go further afield for pet supplies; and Kidstuff, my standby source for kids’ gifts in the Riverbend, is shuttered. I know how fortunate I am to live in one of the few neighborhoods that made it through Katrina relatively unscathed But every shuttered business represents a whole world of heartache, and Stay Local! is dedicated to doing what we can to help our small business community heal itself in the short-term, and sustain itself in the long-term. I hope I can count on your help.

Sincerely,

Dana, Stay Local! Coordinator
The Urban Conservancy
e-mail Dana
504-617-6618

Filed under: Editorials | Projects | Stay Local