Putting the 'fun' in Franklin

On a late-November day, Lamasco’s Bar and Grill owner Amy Word-Smith sat on her bar patio enjoying a cocktail with former Tin Man Brewing Co. Marketing Director Leah Spivey.

The two were brainstorming ideas to market their businesses, Word-Smith said, when she realized that Franklin Street was lacking one thing — a commonality. Most of the business owners didn’t really know each other.

Word-Smith is the president and founder of the Franklin Street Events Association, which has led the West Side Evansville community into a new era of unity. But the street had to reconnect with its roots before it could grow new branches.

“Unless you know where you came from and who you are, it’s hard to know who you are going to be and where you are going,” Word-Smith said.

The town of Lamasco, now Evansville’s west side, was shaped by an influx of 19th century German immigrants who carved a culture into the area.

“A lot of the roots of (Franklin Street) came in our strong sense of self, our sense of identity, our sense of, ‘Let’s do this together as a community,’ ” she said. “I think that spirit has definitely been there since day one, through generations before us, and we are carrying that tradition on.”

Word-Smith knew that Evansville had the potential to market itself such as Austin, Texas, that has “Keep Austin Weird.”

“(Spivey) and I are very much activators and doers,” she said. “We’re not going to sit around and wait two years to get something together.”

The next thing they knew, the two had set in motion plans to throw a party for the whole city.They had zero funding, no clue where to start and minimal assistance.

“I even put those original T-shirts on my personal credit card,” Word-Smith said, saying that they funded the shindig themselves and then kept their fingers crossed that everything would work out.After about eight weeks of planning, they held the first ever Mardi Gras Pub Crawl that attracted more than 5,000 people to Franklin Street.

“I remember (Spivey) and I were standing out in the middle of the street and we could not believe it,” Word-Smith said. “We had tapped into something that was very powerful and very unique and we needed to just grab the bull by its horns and run.”

Word-Smith became the president and founder of the Franklin Street Events Association with a 20-year vision that would use the street’s history to help brand the Evansville community. She said she had no clue things would take off so quickly.

In its first year the association laid the early plans for what would become the Franklin Street Bazaar, bought land for a community garden and began recruiting more and more Franklin Street businesses.

“We got to the tipping point where enough people had joined us on the street that everyone else that hadn’t at that point was like, ‘OK, we’ve got to jump on this train too,’ ” she said.

Cindy Reitz became involved with FSEA almost on accident, she said.Reitz started working for Gerst Haus when they first opened in 1999. She also works with Smitty’s Italian Steakhouse and Sportsman’s Grille & Billiards, all of which, she said, have never struggled to attract clientele.

But still she realized the importance of Word-Smith’s mission.

“(Gerst Haus is) busy year-round, but we are such a community-oriented street that anything we can do to help the other business on the street I thought would be a great thing to do,” she said.

Reitz first met Word-Smith at the premiere Mardi Gras celebration in 2012.

“(Word-Smith) is the lover of fun, let me tell you,” Reitz said. “She has the biggest heart. She’ll do anything for anybody, business-wise or community-wise.”

Reitz said she realized FSEA’s impact on the Evansville community when one day Mayor Lloyd Winnecke asker her, “What are you guys doing on Franklin Street that you’re doing right?’”

FSEA now hosts many events throughout the year — the larger events attracting numbers as large 4,000, and the smaller events around 500.

“We have great volunteers and the businesses on Franklin Street actually get involved. They don’t just hand a donation or put up a poster,” Reitz said. “We are a well-oiled group and we like to have fun.”

Most of FSEA’s events are free and aimed toward all demographics. This also benefits the street by providing exposure for local businesses.

Schön Boutique owner Kelly Borman opened her doors to the historic street on April 10, 2014 — just weeks before the FSEA’s first Franklin Street Bazaar.

"I couldn’t believe the lines of people,” Borman said. “What (FSEA’s) events have brought to our business has helped me get my name out there.”

Borman had always had an interest in women’s fashion, so after a friend suggested she open her own boutique, she and some girlfriends ran with it.Within eight weeks of purchasing a building on Franklin Street, Borman opened her store.

During that time, many Franklin Street business owners stopped by her shop to welcome her to the neighborhood.

“I felt so embraced with these people,” she said. “They wanted me to succeed.”

She was presented with a welcome basket the association hands out to new businesses which was full of helpful things to acclimate to the area.

“Whenever you do something specifically in your store, they (FSEA) blast it on social media and they make sure your event is out there, whether it be on their Web page or on their Facebook,” Borman said. “I can’t imagine the boutique being as successful as it has been without them.”

Although FSEA requires members be Franklin Street business owners, they also partner with multiple organizations around the community such as both of the universities, many charities, The Arts Council, The West Side Nut Club and so on.

“You name an organization, we’ve partnered with it,” Word-Smith said.

She said right away she knew that FSEA would be an organization that gave back to the community such as their latest Gumbo Cook-off, which gave back almost $15,000 to local organizations.

“A lot of the people in the non-for-profit world call Evansville ‘Heavensville,’ ” Word-Smith said. “We have a lot of non-for-profits per capita and you really see that when you’re in this world how many groups that are truly out there for Evansville.”

FSEA has inspired growth within other Evansville communities, she said. Other organizations primed the pump, but FSEA seems to have sparked an entire movement.

“The biggest thing I have seen change in the last five years in Evansville is the sense of place making,” she said. “Now it’s headed to Haynie’s Corner.”

She said the most wonderful part of her organization is that it has given a sense of empowerment to other districts in the community.Word-Smith recently opened The Dapper Pig in Evansville’s ever-growing Arts District, in her effort to continue the area’s evolution and promote the benefits of supporting local businesses.

“Very quickly, a group of people spending their money locally makes a massive impact economically,” she said.

To get involved with FSEA or to find out more about upcoming events, visit the award-winning

FallinlovewithFranklin.org, which was designed by a group of seniors at USI.

“Early on we knew that we had tapped in to such a need in the community that people wanted this sense of togetherness, they wanted this sense of unity,” Word-Smith said. “People long for that.”