The more I attend Main Street Portsmouth events the more I am impressed with its mission. If there is to be a future for independent businesses in downtown Portsmouth, two things are going to have to take place. One is that all businesses are going to have to participate in the various events that go on there from the Chocolate Walk to Live and Five and everything in between. All stores should open at the same time, so that when people come downtown they don’t find one store open and two closed. The second is that all of us are going to have to make it a habit to do some of our shopping there.

Every time I shop the Historic District of downtown Portsmouth I am fascinated by the things you can’t find anywhere else. I stopped in a store recently and found a huge porcelain cat, and a cream pitcher, which I was able to get at a bundled price. If you are a collector of anything from glassware to records, you will find a gold mine in the Main Street Portsmouth area.

Zoe Richards, the executive director of Main Street Portsmouth, talks about the 3/50 program. Just spend a total of $50 a month in three stores you wouldn’t want to live without, and if everyone did that we would be on our way to a downtown revitalization.

There is also the beautification aspect of what Main Street Portsmouth does. Some of it is planned by volunteers, and some of it is just individual merchants wanting to help make the area in which they operate more beautiful.

Last year, the farmer’s market on the esplanade drew hundreds of people each Saturday, and it will be starting up again in May and run through October.

Cleanup Day is April 30, and they could sure use a lot more volunteers.

Why not begin a new habit? Start devoting at least a couple of days a month of your shopping time to the Downtown Historic District of Portsmouth, where local people sell to local people, and the dollars generated stay right here in Scioto County. For every dollar spent in that district, 43 cents goes back into the community in taxes and spending.

Here is an awakening. “The economy” is not some big set of figures released each month by the federal government. “The economy” is you and me shopping and spending money with local people in local stores. Let’s get this community back on it’s feet — it all begins with you.