Our Daily Show Interview! Wood River Main Street: New Website and More!
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WOOD RIVER - Wood River Main Street has unveiled a new website with the goal of helping promote local businesses.
Kristen Burns, director of Wood River Main Street, said the website launched last week. The website allows business owners to build their own profile pages, with a directory that can take users to all the pages for businesses in Wood River. Burns explained that the design aims to promote these local businesses.
“It’s really geared toward all of our downtown businesses and all of our businesses in Wood River. It’s a really, really cool concept,” Burns said. “I’m super, super excited to have this up and running. It’s been a long time coming and it was a lot of work to get it going, but it’s going now.”
Every business can input information about their hours, services and more on their individual profile pages. They can also upload coupons or job postings. This free profile is similar to a website for each business.
Burns highlighted the significance of promoting these businesses on the Wood River Main Street website. It’s important to her that the organization supports these businesses in every way they can.
“It’s every single business in Wood River, every single partner that we have. It’s just another way for us all to focus our energy on doing the same thing,” she explained. “It’s important for us to be able to cross-promote and just help each other out. We’re all on the same mission, to make a thriving downtown and a thriving Wood River. That’s what we’re trying to do.”
Additionally, the website’s community calendar is integrated with the library’s calendar and the Parks and Recreation Department’s calendar, so all of these events are in one place for people “to see what’s really happening in Wood River,” Burns said.
Also on the website, Riverbend residents can take a survey detailing their thoughts on Wood River’s development. Burns said this data will inform the Downtown Transformation Strategy Workshop on Aug. 19–20, 2025, in collaboration with Illinois Main Street, Main Street America, and the Wood River Business Alliance.
She emphasized the importance of hearing from a variety of stakeholders, including residents and visitors. You can take the survey online.
“It’s super important for us to get as many people as we can to take the survey, because we want to know exactly what you’re wanting,” Burns said. “It’s great if we put a bunch of businesses that I want, but I’m not all of Wood River. Other people want other things, so we want to hear from every single person. We want to hear from business owners, visitors, residents, public officials, everybody, because we want to make sure that we are doing what we need to do to make Wood River great for everybody.”
Burns is pleased with the new website and eager to see Wood River’s continued development. She encourages people to visit the official Wood River Main Street website at WRBusinessAlliance.org for more information.
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