Making Marion the best it can be

It takes the efforts of municipal and county employees, teachers and support staff, law enforcement officers and politicians, to make Marion County, every day, what it can be. Everyone showing up, everyone doing his or her part.

It takes business owners, retirees, community leaders, pastors, visionaries and workaholics, all striving together, to ensure that programs are in place, services are provided and people are educated and safe.

Yes, Marion is suffering unemployment as never before.

Yes, there are fewer businesses in the county, which equates to fewer salaries being paid, fewer taxes being collected and fewer choices for citizens. We see the effects of "no jobs" in closed store fronts on our Main Streets and in the number of shoplifters in the police reports.

Recently, Marion School District 2 Superintendent Nathaniel Miller said that "In Marion County, we are seeing a decrease in employment in schools, businesses and health services. These areas are needed for a strong community."

It is up to the citizens of Marion County to provide the necessary services to its citizens, to take care of one another and to create jobs for the area. As an example, at least one locally-own entity has done just that for decades.

Mullins-based Anderson Brothers Bank stands as a testament in Marion County to taking care of the county's own, to providing jobs for folks in the area and for growing and changing with the times. Initially a tobacco-farming based entity, the bank continues to employ good business practices and is a Marion County success story. We need to create a few more.

As the economic news continues to be dismal, it is important to continue to work hard and to be diligent about making our communities productive, Miller said in his guest column in this past week's issue of the Star & Enterprise.

We will continue to thrive, Miller and others say, as we reinvent how we engage businesses, as we build upon our entrepreneurial spirit and forge new partnerships.

"As a citizen of the county, I believe we could make our county a better place to live and a more prosperous place to work and raise a family," Miller said, finishing his article with "We must begin to work more harmoniously with each other in an effort to make our future bright."

We often look to others to solve our problems. It is time Marion County citizens, who are well-educated, who are intelligent, who understand technology and who care about community and family, quit being lazy, quit waiting on others to bring you jobs and and get to work at creating them.

More than ever, the communities who "nurse their own indigenous seedlings," of small entrepreneurs and old businesses with new ideas, will bring the qualified, the energetic, the interested and the investment needed to revive all our county's Main Streets.

It is not necessary to court and bring the business with 1,000 jobs to the county, for when that entity leaves, much more than the 1,000 jobs is lost.

It is better to have 10 businesses needing 100 good men and women. Or 15 new businesses needing 67 people each and 20 existing businesses adding 10 new jobs, and so on. Most businesses are tiny compared with corporate titans, but most have to start somewhere.

Using technology, you can be anywhere to be a call center. You can be the outsourced entity. Improvise. Imagine. Artists, web page designers, software writers and computer technicians can come back home, or never leave, growing their businesses here in the county. Innovate. Think.