Project Hopes To Build Community Pride
Michelle Purdum stands with one of the signs created to help create positive chatter for the Oskaloosa community.
Oskaloosa, Iowa – Social media can be a great tool and, at times, a brutal one.
Michelle Purdum hopes to help share the word that Oskaloosa is a thriving community and has had signs made and started a social media account to help show that pride in the community.
We recently sat down with the local business owner to find out her motivation to start the project and what she hopes the result will be.
“Well, you know, honestly, in scrolling through social media, I would often see a lot of negative comments about all sorts of different things,” said Purdum. “We have too many pizza restaurants, Musco’s taking over. You know, all these things.”
So Purdum thought about those people searching Oskaloosa online, “and comes across any specific topics, and they start to see negative, negative, negative. I thought, you know what, that is not a good reflection of our community.”
“Because although the negative voices are loud, the number of people that love living here, love working here, you know, have staked their roots here, you know, have gone and come back is by far greater than that number of the naysayers, and so I thought, You know what?”
With that, Purdum designed yard signs, and larger signs for bigger spaces, to be visual reminders “when you drive through town of the amount of love and pride that we do have in our community.”
So, working with a local designer, Purdum ordered 100 signs, and there are less than 20 left. There’s another order planned and some large banners going up around town.
The positivity can be seen online already. “If you choose to be positive, to highlight the positive, it’ll be perceived in that way,” says Purdum. “You know, nothing is perfect. Are there things in our community that drive me crazy? Absolutely. But I’m not going to dwell on those.”
“I think the more that we focus on the good… we’ve got to welcome the businesses that want to come into our town. We’ve got to support those businesses that are coming into our town.”
Signs are available at True Value Hardware and Mahaska Drug for $10 each, allowing more signs to be printed.
When asked why this is important, Purdum said, “You know, it’s to change the mindset. It’s to give people a positive trigger as they’re driving through town.”
“I would just love to feel more of a positive vibe in our town. You know, again, there’s a lot of stuff that we can’t change, but we can change our attitudes,” said Purdum in closing.
You can find out more by visiting the Love My City Oskaloosa, Iowa, Facebook Page by clicking HERE.
