Whether you’ve seen it on TV or right in front of your eyes, communal restoration is everywhere. From the shows “Fixer Upper” to “Hometown” people are going back to their roots to fix homes and businesses where they grew up. However this isn’t the case for everyone. Most of these are big, thriving cities that attract tons of tourists every year. Take Waco, Texas for example, as Dr. Ray Perryman states in the Texas CEO Magazine, “Magnolia has been a catalyst to focus commercial attention on an area with great development potential, and the growth and activity in Waco has been the result… tourism increased from 789,140 in 2015 to 2,093,627 in 2016” (Perryman). The people committing to these restoration efforts and shows that are being put on TV are clearly profiting and greatly benefiting from the revenue for their families, but the question and issue that begins to linger is: are communal restorations really in it for the community or are they there for the money and profit? What happens to the small towns that go unnoticed and left behind for fame?
Joe Hicks, a general store manager at the Ace Hardware of Lookout Valley, has his own ideals and beliefs on the importance of community and its restoration. Sitting at his clustered and paper-filled desk, typing away at different emails and account reports to go over later, Hicks describes the community and home he grew up in as “small, like 20,000 people or less. A community where everybody knew everybody.” In this little, tightly bonded community Hicks lived in, the conditions of homes and buildings were aged. They were outdated, from cracks in walls and dirty sidewalks, to plumbing issues in every other building, there was this historic aspect to it. When asked why he wanted to start this small business he calls Helpful Services, he answers proudly in his beaming red Ace Hardware shirt, “because I know that there is a little bit more to what I could do, and just based off of my regular full time job at Ace Hardware I felt like there was so much more that I could do with my time. So that's why we opened up Helpful Services, [so] we could get out there and we could help homeowners, people in commercial properties. That way we could, you know, kind of get a little everywhere outside of the hardware store.” That was really it: he was concerned about his time being well spent on something that he believed mattered. This was his goal, to be the helping hand that reached out to people he knew, to be the one to come and paint your problems away not for the cost but for the kindness.
Community is a specific word, referring to a most small, and well occupied space. So when Hicks is asked if he is open to expanding Helpful Services to others statewide or keeping it close to home in his community, he responds with, “I’m fine with Helpful Services kind of staying a little bit more on the local side of the aspects. As far as statewide goes, it depends on how you want to look at it. There's already a few companies that have implemented things such as Helpful Services, but for us Helpful Services is a little special, you know. Especially to me just because it’s more of a smaller company, with just some hardware guys and just kind of doing these things that help out our community a little bit more on the personal side of things. Because we know our customers, we know our locals, and we’re able to kind of help them out and we’re more so kind of like the low man on the totem pole but that’s not always about the money. It’s always about helping people and knowing the people, you know? Building relationships–’cause that's what life is all about.” As Hicks states, community and building relationships through restoration and reconstruction is really one of the most important things in your life. It isn’t about how much money you make from others, it's about the solid foundation you build with them and the relationship and trust you gain through your work.
As Hicks states, community and building relationships through restoration and reconstruction is really one of the most important things in your life.
There are so many obstacles that come with starting and running a small business. Unlike these profitable shows on TV, small restoration businesses like Helpful Services run and rely on the relationships they build with the people they help. They also have simple problems with the jobs they do in the moment. Hicks says the biggest issues are “really growing pains, you know? I mean that comes along with a new business really. It’s really just kind of a regular business and business problems, but each job is unique and that's one thing about Helpful Services. When you go out here and do these paint jobs and pressure washing jobs, you may have a few more underlying issues with the job, like procedures that you have to do before you paint or wash. Each job has its own distractions and issues, so you just gotta learn how to kind of get through them.” There is no significant problem that a small business can’t fix in a small community. While Hicks and Helpful Services are not choosing to really go all around the state, there is beauty that comes with it. Not every city and county needs to have its own television show that is only dedicated to money and public figures, but at least a group of people with a kind heart that is willing to step up and bring a new life to old things. Community can be small and meaningful rather than large and vague, the better you know the people you’re helping the better you feel about helping them.
Works Cited
Perryman, Dr. M. R. (2021, May 27). Waco: Economic Diversity with a punch!. Texas CEO Magazine. https://texasceomagazine.com/waco-economic-diversity-with-a-punch/
Hicks, Joe. Personal interview, November #, 2024
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