LEDC Update

Progress continues for our fair city as we welcome new businesses and look forward to some spooky downtown events coming up!

Impact Nutrition is a new shop open downtown right next door to The Gingerbread House bakery. Impact hosts some fantastic smoothies, teas, and other health-centric offerings for citizens of Linden to enjoy. I have personally had their limited-time Pumpkin Cheesecake smoothie and I can say that it tasted spectacular and gave me a great energy boost.

In addition to our new downtown business, progress continues with Open Hearts Children and Family Services. For any who do not know already, Open Hearts is an organization that has purchased the old Good Shepherd hospital in Linden. They are planning to establish a residential treatment facility for foster children in the previously vacant hospital.

This is a terrific thing for Linden in many ways. The facility will be the only one of its kind in northeast Texas filling a very crucial role in housing children in the area who are placed into the foster care system. It should also be noted that this facility will be utilized for children who are in the system through no fault of their own and are in no way juvenile delinquents.

For as long as I’ve known Linden, I have known it as an accommodating and loving community that realizes the value in helping others. This facility will allow us to become a haven of stability for children in unfortunate situations while simultaneously creating jobs and allowing said children to bolster the population of our schools and participate in our community organizations.

Moving onto events, I realized that in my excitement to announce the LEDC’s first Small Business Workshop in last week’s update, I didn’t even mention the outcome of The Taste of Linden and Whitey Johnson blues concert that took place on T-Bone Walker Day on October 19th. The Taste of Linden was a smashing success for our downtown and all credit goes to the hard work of Linden Main Street for making the event happen. The Whitey Johnson concert that took place at Music City Texas Theater was also a lot of fun and served as a fantastic way of honoring the memory of Aaron “T-Bone” Walker and his legacy with the blues genre.

Looking forward, we are going to be having Trunk or Treat on the square on Halloween at 6 p.m. This event is always a ton of fun, so bring the kids out to get some candy! I don’t track weather very closely, but I’ve been told by some that we may be facing some rain that evening, so be praying for clear skies. Although, we did see rain at last years, and we all still managed to have loads of fun, so I say come what may!

Linden Lion’s Club is also having their annual pumpkin carving/decoration contest, so consider entering. Entry only costs $5 and you can buy votes for $1 apiece. They have some great prizes this year including the grand prize of $100.

Also, as I briefly alluded to above, the LEDC is holding a Small Business Workshop on November 20th, at noon at the County Seat Café. Admission is free for all current and prospective Linden area business owners. So, if you own a business or if you are thinking about starting a business come on out! Our speaker will be Kathy Williams with Professional Office Solutions and she will be speaking about best bookkeeping practices. This is very valuable information to understand and contextualize the “nuts-and-bolts” side of small business ownership, so come out and learn with us! Lunch will be provided as well!