Camas has been selected as one of the top six finalists for the online show “Small Business Revolution Main Street,” advancing to the final round of the competition to decide which small town will receive the starring role in the series’ upcoming fourth season.
The winning town will receive a $500,000 investment to revitalize its main street corridor by providing makeovers to a handful of local businesses. The show’s hosts, former ABC reality show star Ty Pennington and Amanda Brinkman, will spend six months getting to know the town and building the improvements while the eight-episode season is filmed. The season will air this fall.
“We are beside ourselves with excitement to be in the top six,” Carrie Schulstad, the Downtown Camas Association’s executive director, said in a statement. “This is an incredible opportunity for all of us here in Camas to receive not just funding, but national exposure along with advice and mentorship from nationally renowned marketers.”
The show is produced by Deluxe Corp., a small business and financial marketing consulting firm based in St. Paul, Minn. It began as a way to spread the word about the company’s services, according to Deluxe spokesman Cameron Potts, but it evolved into a broader revitalization project. The show airs on Hulu and the website smallbusinessrevolution.org.
Camas was among an initial list of 20 finalists selected in November from more than 12,000 applicants. The roster was narrowed to 10 finalists in December, and Pennington and Brinkman announced the top-six finalists in a video posted on the show’s Facebook page on Tuesday morning.
“Typically we have five, and we just could not narrow it down to five, so there are six towns this time moving on to the public vote,” Brinkman said.
The previous three seasons featured Wabash, Ind.; Bristol Borough, Pa; and Alton, Ill. Camas’ competitors for the season-four spot are Cañon City, Colo.; Corsicana, Texas; Durant, Okla; Washington, N.C.; and Searcy, Ark.
Camas is the only West Coast city still in the running and, if it wins, would be the first West Coast city to be featured in the show, which is something Schulstad said she hopes to emphasize in the coming week. The city’s bid represents an opportunity to showcase not only Camas itself, she said, but the Pacific Northwest overall.
“We’re hoping we’ll be able to garner more votes from all over the region,” Schulstad told The Columbian.
The show’s producers chose the winners of the previous rounds, but the final winner will be determined by an online public vote which will be held throughout the next week. Voters can make their choices at deluxe.com/small-business-revolution/main-street/season-four. Votes are limited to one per email address per day. Voting closes at 8 p.m. Feb. 19.
The winner will be announced on Feb. 26, Schulstad said.
Camas was nominated for the show by staff at the downtown Attic Gallery, according to Schulstad, and the Downtown Camas Association has spent the past three months leading city business owners and residents in a campaign to raise Camas’ online profile by posting stories about their own Camas experiences using the social media hashtag #MyCamas.
“The pride Camas residents have in our town is one of the city’s best attributes, and we’re calling on people to display that pride by taking just a few moments every day for the next week to vote,” Schulstad said in her statement. “The #MyCamas movement has been phenomenal to watch, and we need to take it to even greater heights over the next week.”
The announcement of the top 10 finalists in December was followed by a cross-country tour in which the producers spent the entire month of January visiting each of the finalist cities for two days to meet with business leaders and city officials.
Camas was first on the list, and the Downtown Camas Association organized a welcoming event held at the Grains of Wrath brewpub on Jan. 2. Hundreds of people crowded into the packed dining area to rally for Camas and meet Brinkman and the show’s producers.
Downtown Camas Association members and volunteers ordered 200 #MyCamas T-shirts to distribute at the event, and printed out #MyCamas signs for businesses to hang in their windows. City and business leaders met privately with the producers the following day to make Camas’ pitch for the show.
The challenge, according to the association’s board vice president Randy Curtis, was to demonstrate the strength of Camas as an engaged community and a small town full of local businesses, but still highlight the ways in which the city could benefit from being on the show.
Curtis said the leaders focused on Camas’ history of reinventing itself in response to economic headwinds, and portrayed the show bid as a new potential revitalization effort in the midst of challenges such as the recovery from the Great Recession and the loss of jobs at the Camas mill.
The show will pick six small local businesses to receive makeovers, and most of the $500,000 investment will go toward those improvements. The businesses will all be located along the winning city’s Main Street, although the street doesn’t have to bear the name Main Street to qualify — in Camas’ case, it would be Northeast Fourth Avenue.
“It’s a mix of practical improvements but also helping them with their marketing,” Schulstad said. “Whatever it is that that small business needs.”
Downtown Camas Association and city officials have both expressed hope that the revitalization impacts could extend beyond Fourth Avenue and onto neighboring streets, either directly as part of the show or through separate city and community efforts inspired by the show.
Correction: One of the six finalist cities for the show Small Business Revolution is Searcy, Ark. A previous version of this story incorrectly stated that Searcy was located in a different state.
