05/24/2026
Small businesses are built by ordinary people taking extraordinary risks.
This Memorial Day weekend, I have been thinking a lot about resilience, sacrifice, and the courage it takes to keep showing up even when things are hard.
Small business ownership is not glamorous most days — it is long hours, financial stress, slow seasons, rising costs, tariffs, economic uncertainty, changing consumer habits, and constantly adapting to the normal ups and downs and unknowns that come with business.
On top of that, business owners often face criticism and negativity simply for putting themselves out there and trying to build something meaningful while quietly minding their own business.
Yet small business owners continue showing up every day, hoping, building, and believing anyway.
When I opened my first store four years ago, I simply opened a small business in downtown Marion. I did not fully know what that would mean, and honestly assumed I would mostly be doing it alone.
Any encouragement, support, promotion, collaboration, or customers choosing to shop with us has always felt like an unexpected blessing — whether it comes from other business owners, customers, community organizations, influencers, or people simply cheering us on. I do not expect it, and I never take it for granted.
There are more businesses downtown today than there were four years ago, and it is still growing.
Some businesses do not make it, some thrive, and new ones continue to open.
That is how small business works in every town.
Growth does not happen overnight, and it does not happen because things are easy. It happens because people are willing to take chances, invest in their communities, and keep going through difficult seasons.
This is for my fellow small business owners — wherever you are. Don’t give up. This is who we are. We rise up when others try to tear us down. We stand together. We help each other. We give everything we have, even when people do not see the sacrifices behind the scenes.
Keep showing up anyway. Ignore the noise. I believe in small business, and I believe in our downtown.
Keep Making Everything Around You Beautiful.
-Jenny
