Business View Civil and Municipal | September 2022

126 CIVIL AND MUNICIPAL VOLUME 3, ISSUE 9 exterior detriment to the neighborhood. They’ve also used Phelps to attract new business to the area. “Dan came on board and he really hit the ground running with relationship building and reaching out to different places and saying ‘hey, do you want to come to Dracut? Here’s what we can offer you,” says Alison Genest, Chairman of the Dracut Board of Selectmen. The residents themselves have made a big impact, as well. During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, while most towns had businesses shutting down, Dracut was opening them up. “We had businesses coming in and starting to thrive in a pandemic, which is really against the norm when you think about it,” Genest says. “The whole community just rallied together. We came together with this big marketing effort to do everything we could to sustain all the businesses that we already had. People were posting on Facebook telling everyone to shop local.” The Town of Dracut is hoping to carry its success Saja Farm is one of more than a dozen working farms in Dracut