Dear CAMS Community

Left to Right: Amanda Elliott; Fremont Festival of the Arts (Courtesy: City of Fremont).

CAMS Connection | Summer 2023
By: Amanda Elliott, Senior Program Officer and Director of California Programs, Main Street America

Summer is almost gone, and fall is on the horizon. These past few months, I’ve had the great pleasure of attending several of our Main Street events and thoroughly enjoyed all the fantastic offerings from a broad variety of local businesses. Our Main Street organizations host some of the most engaging events drawing thousands to their districts and providing a platform for small businesses and entrepreneurs to grow–many downtown brick and mortar businesses get their start as vendors at events. What may look like a festive festival or cool concert offering entertainment is in fact an economic development incubator for our communities, and one of the many ways Main Street organizations are essential to the economic vibrancy of commercial districts.

California Main Street (CAMS) has the unique opportunity to provide crucial resources, training, grants, networking, and specialized consulting to our members and others who want to join our exceptional group of practitioners doing the good work! We had a great turnout for our recent webinar on retail trends featuring Matt Wagner, Ph.D. from Main Street America. Our next webinar will be a 101 on PBIDs with Carson Lambeth of Civitas Advisors, scheduled for  October 17 at 11am. Save the date!

We continue to fight hard for the recognition we deserve for our communities. We need your help as we advocate for state funding and ongoing support. Our recent advocacy campaign in support of AB1669 has brought us ever closer to realizing our overarching goals to preserve our culturally and historically significant districts. We encourage you to continue to connect with your local representatives and help us make the case for Main Street. 

Stay tuned to our CAMS communications channels for updates on our webinars, events, and other significant happenings. As always, remember to share your announcements, events, and special projects with us so that we can highlight and amplify them throughout the network. Please reach out to me if you have any questions or concerns. We look forward to seeing you at our next check-in. Let’s keep creating vitality in our communities!

In partnership,
Amanda