 
Bella Interiors Joins HGTV To Stage Aberdeen Home
Bella Interiors Joins HGTV To Stage Aberdeen Home
Bella Interiors will team up with HGTV for a new series that sets the scene for the staging of a home in Aberdeen, Mississippi. Penny Bowen, owner of Bella Interiors, and fellow designers Terri McKissack, Nikki Wiygul and Lori Lumsden, will lend their expertise to transform the interior of a local home owned by famed makeup artist and Mississippi native Billy Brasfield. In addition to documenting the process of renovating, designing and selling the house, the show will showcase the broader efforts of some of Mississippi’s finest creative talent to help beautify the city of Aberdeen.
Penny Bowen is the owner of Bella Interiors and Penny Bowen Designs, located at 515 College Street in Columbus. Four years ago she began with the dream of a one-stop design shop and today Bella is number one interior design resource. This group of designers – dubbed the “Bella Beauties” by Brasfield – is looking forward to transforming the chosen home.
Billy Brasfield, better known as Billy B, serves as a makeup artist to the stars. He has worked with such big names as Lady Gaga, Sharon Stone and Wynona Judd.
Hosted by Bella Interiors, the open house event, located at 208 High Street, will take place on Wednesday, July 21, from 3 pm-7 pm. On Saturday, July 24, from 8 am-4 pm, select furnishings from the staging will be available for purchase at 40 % off at Bella.
The HGTV show is scheduled to air after the first of the year.
For more information, contact Sara Welch at Bella Interiors by calling 622-241-5055 or emailing at
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Façade grants presented to downtown Tupelo businesses
Tupelo, Miss.—The Downtown Tupelo Main Street Façade Grant Program was announced in December of 2009. Ladygug’s Children & Maternity and Barry & J.J. Thornton are the first downtown businesses to be awarded the grant. Grants of $1500 were presented to both of these businesses during the Downtown Tupelo Main Street Association’s (DTMSA) Open House held recently.
In addition to a general “open house," DTMSA is showing off their new façade and interior renovations as well.
“We felt that it was important for us to lead by example. The office housing the Main Street office for nearly 20 years had not been renovated or updated in several years,” said Debbie Brangenberg, DTMSA Executive Director. “We are very proud of the results of our project and are very excited that others are also updating their facades.”
A program of the DTMSA, the Façade Grant Program is designed to help businesses and property owners upgrade and improve their building’s exterior appearance, increasing their attractiveness to new customers and contributing a positive influence toward revitalization of their respective areas.
Grant rebates of up to $1500 or 50 percent of exterior rehabilitation costs (whichever is less) are available to projects located in downtown Tupelo. All applicants are required to be members of DTMSA in good standing and projects must be submitted for approval prior to construction.
In order to qualify for these grants, projects requesting these grants must comply with the design guidelines of the DTMSA Design Handbook. These are special one-time grants available on a first come/first served basis. Funding for the grants is from the proceeds of the 2009 Tupelo Elvis Festival.
For more information on eligibility requirements for the Façade Grant Program, please contact the DTMSA at 662.841.6598. Application packets are available at 108 South Broadway.
40 Mississippi Communities receive National Main Street Accreditation
JACKSON, Miss. -- Forty Mississippi communities have recently received accreditation as 2010 National Main Street Programs.
The Mississippi Main Street Association (MMSA), in partnership with the National Trust Main Street Center, has verified that each of these local Main Street® programs has met performance standards that ensure a comprehensive, historic preservation-based approach to commercial district revitalization:
Aberdeen, Amory, Baldwyn, Batesville, Bay St. Louis, Biloxi, Canton, Carthage, Cleveland, Clinton, Columbia, Columbus, Corinth, Greenville, Greenwood, Gulfport, Hattiesburg, Hernando, Indianola, Jackson (Belhaven), Kosciusko, Laurel, Lexington, Louisville, New Albany, Ocean Springs, Okolona, Pascagoula, Philadelphia, Picayune, Pontotoc, Port Gibson, Ripley, Senatobia, Tunica, Tupelo, Vicksburg, Water Valley, West Point and Woodville.
"The highly prized recognition reflects the commitment made by both state and community leaders to create economic development while revitalizing the downtown core of their towns and cities," said Bob Wilson, MMSA Executive Director. "Main Street programs play a strategic role in stimulating the local, state and national economy."
More than 25 years ago, the National Trust Main Street Center developed the Main Street Four-Point Approach® - a historic preservation-based economic development strategy that more than 1,800 communities have adopted to revitalize their historic or traditional commercial districts.
Each year, the Center offers accreditation to the local Main Street programs that meet the 10 national standards of performance. In 2010, 759 programs in the nation received national accreditation based on criteria developed by the National Trust Main Street Center.
Cumulatively, the commercial districts taking part in the Main Street program nationally have generated more than $48.9 billion in new investment, with a net gain of more than 417,919 new jobs and 94,176 new businesses.
Every dollar a community uses to support its local Main Street program leverages an average of $25 in new investment, making the Main Street program one of the most successful economic development strategies in America.
For more information on the 10 performance criteria required for accreditation as National Main Street Programs, please visit http://www.preservationnation.org/main-street/about-main-street/the-programs/national-programs.html. For more information on programs of the Mississippi Main Street Association, please visit http://www.msmainstreet.com.
5 Stages of Community Development
5 Stages of Community Development
By Phil Hardwick
Mississippi Business Journal
Many experts believe that all communities move through identifiable stages, or phases. As you consider the information offered below, take a moment to think about the stage, or stages, that your communities are in.
A community is a collection of people with a common interest. The collection may be as small as two people or as large as the planet. The common interest might be social, geographic, work-related, religious or any other interest. Most people think of a geographic interest when the term community development is mentioned. In other words, community usually refers to place. The place may be a neighborhood, a town or part of a large city. The people and the physical surroundings make up the community. In this column, we will examine the stages of community development more in terms of the people in the community.
In their book “Creating Community Anywhere,” authors Carolyn R. Shaffer and Kristin Anundsen propose the following five phases of community development:
Phase 1, Excitement – Getting high on possibilities;
Phase 2, Autonomy – Jockeying for power;
Phase 3, Stability – Settling into roles and structures;
Phase 4, Synergy – Allowing self and group to mutually unfold; and
Phase 5, Transformation – Expanding, segmenting or disbanding.
While these phases are applicable to groups in general, my comments will be from the perspective of one who is often asked to facilitate groups that have expressed a desire to come together for the purpose of planning the future. For whatever reason, a community decides that it wants to change. It is in effect saying, “We are ready to build a new community.” That is the essence of the first phase. People are excited. They dream of the possibilities. They come up with a plan and a vision for their community.
In Phase Two the power-grabbing begins. This happens when some members of the community realize that other members are not what they said they were or not what they were believed to be. The community becomes no longer unified. Some members become angry, disillusioned and disappointed. They will either try to change the other member, or members, to what they thought they should be, or they will unconsciously retaliate. While this sounds negative, it is an important part of the process because this is where leaders emerge and where some fundamental issues begin to get resolved. This is where open communication and paying attention to individual and group needs results in moving to the next phase.
Phase Three is one where individuals can say what they feel, and feel like they are being heard. Criticism of the community is tolerated and considered healthy. Roles have been defined, and with luck community members are in the roles that bring out their individual highest and best use while making the most valuable contribution to the community. It is the phase when someone will say, “Let’s call on Jane for that task because she does it better than anyone else.”
In Phase Four, individuals are no longer satisfied with just pleasing themselves. They are looking to become more. The physiologist Abraham Maslow would probably call it “self-actualization.” We often hear it referred to as “giving back to the community.”
Phase Five is a rebirth in which the community sees itself as feeling the need to serve a larger community. This often happens in the business community after a company has been so successful that it finds that it is beneficial to look externally to contribute to the success of its town or, for example, its chamber of commerce.
So which phase is your community in? One way to determine that is to examine whether the community is internal, i.e. doing things for itself, or external, meaning doing things for a larger community. If the former is the case, then your community is probably in one of the first three phases. But with that thought comes a warning. The phases are not linear. Sometimes they overlap or interweave. That is why community development is as much an art as a science for those who are the field of community development as an occupation.
What if you are stuck? If you feel that your community is stuck in a phase you may want to consider changing roles and trying out new skills. You can also take time to review those plans and goals that you envisioned back in Phase One. Also, think about how the environment has changed in the community. Have member leaders come and gone? Has there been an event that has had a fundamental impact on the community? If you feel that the community is falling apart, have an open and frank discussion about why members have left the community or are no longer involved.
When thinking about community building it us useful to recall the old Chinese proverb.
Go in search of your people:
Love Them;
Learn from Them;
Plan with Them;
Serve Them;
Begin with what They have;
Build on what They know.
But of the best leaders
when their task is accomplished,
their work is done,
The people all remark:
“We have done it ourselves.”
(Author unknown)
Phil Hardwick is coordinator of capacity development at the John C. Stennis Institute of Government. Contact him at
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Club Ebony
Indianola has two blues venues, the historic Club Ebony, “Home of the Blues” and the innovative 308 Blues Club and Cafe, which hosts blues, rock, country, and hip-hop acts. |
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