HOUSTON -- Many U.S. communities with bustling downtowns were better prepared to weather economic fallout from the pandemic, thanks to a decades-old revitalization project.

The Main Street program was founded by Mary Means in the 1970s when she worked at the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

Means said regional shopping centers and suburban lifestyles were draining downtowns, leaving behind shabby buildings and vacant storefronts that once lined vibrant main streets.

"What we were doing with the Main Street project, it turns out, is creating another story: 'Hold on, you can stay. You can do some things about it and here's how to get started, and here's what to do,'" Means explained.

Now known as Main Street America, the program continues to help communities transform their economies and improve residents' quality of life. Means was about to publish a book about her life's project called "Main Street's Comeback" when COVID-19 hit. She revised the title to include: "And How It Can Come Back Again," with advice to businesses about staying afloat during the pandemic.

After a pilot program in three cities, Means said Texas was one of the first states to apply for grant money, promising to choose five towns a year for 10 years, and back them to do Main Street revitalization.

"Nobody made a claim like that. We just thought it was Texas," Means recounted. "But by God they have, and it's been long beyond 10 years that Texas has been entering new towns in the program and providing the kind of support that enabled Texas towns to survive, and many of 'em to thrive."

Means said it's helpful 40 years after the project began, there are investment tax credits for historic buildings that make revitalizing downtown areas more doable.

"Not only do communities need to take a look at the usually hidden or undiscovered asset of their historic downtown buildings, they need to really keep them up, and bring them back and keep them up," Means urged.

NORTHFIELD, Ma. -- Land trusts across the Northeast have partnered with poets this year for the first edition of "Writing the Land," an anthology to help raise awareness of the value of protecting nature.

Forty poets each wrote pieces inspired by different areas of conserved land, including here in Massachusetts.

Lis McLoughlin, director and editor of Writing the Land, said her community in Northfield was threatened in 2014 by a pipeline, and the group that came to its defense was the Mount Grace Land Conservation Trust.

"I came to realize that Land Trusts are really important," McLoughlin recounted. "Their mission of protecting land is for everybody. So I thought, 'Well, my poetry comes from the land, I may as well use it to help protect the land.'"

She noted the anthology can be purchased at the Land Trusts featured in the book. She added next year, Writing the Land will have four anthologies coming out, featuring more than 100 poets and more than 50 Land Trusts.

Rachelle Parker, one of the poets featured in the anthology, said for her, being a part of the project meant connecting with the ways land offers sustenance and shelter.

"For me, I write from a point of view of a descendant of enslaved Africans," Parker explained. "So they had to rely on the land to gain freedom at times, transporting themselves from slavery to freedom, and how the land was there to accept them and to welcome them."

McLoughlin hopes the poems take readers on a journey and encourage them to emotionally connect with nature, the spaces represented in the poems and what they have around them.

"Every Land Trust has a piece of the puzzle of how we can live in better relationship to the land," McLoughlin remarked. "Some of them preserve wilderness, some of them preserve farms, some of them conserve forests."

LA CONNER, Wash. - The exhibit of an artist who depicted the lives of farmworkers in northwest Washington has been recognized for its quality.

The Skagit County Historical Museum has received an award of excellence in exhibits from the Washington Museum Association for its retrospective on Jesus Guillen's work.

Guillen was a painter and farmworker in the region who died in 1994. His son, Miguel Guillen, provided input for the exhibit and works as a program manager in grants to organizations for the Washington State Arts Commission.

He said his father had a love of the worker.

"He had a comprehensive understanding of the experience," said Guillen. "That was really one of the drivers. I mean, he was an activist, he knew what needed to be done, he knew what he wanted to see done. But it came from a place in him that was of experience."

Guillen was born in Texas, spent his childhood in Mexico and then moved to the Skagit Valley in the 1960s, where he lived for the rest of his life. The exhibit, which was on display at the beginning of 2021, included his paintings, drawings and a diorama of his studio.

Kris Ekstrand is an artist and friend of Guillen's who curated "Jesus Guillen: An Artistic Legacy of Love and Courage."

She said his work was under-recognized and had never been shown as a group before this exhibit. Ekstrand said the exhibit was not just about his art but the story of his life and experience living in the Skagit Valley, which he loved.

"What makes his work unique is that the perspective of his paintings particularly is from the farmworker's point of view," said Ekstrand. "So it's really from the field looking out rather than from our point of view driving by, looking in."

Guillen said his father's work lives on because honest art always resonates.

"The fact that he poured so much of his soul into that work, so much intention into that work means it will never be irrelevant," said Guillen. "It will always be relevant because it speaks directly to the experience."

STOYSTOWN, Pa. -- Many have called United Flight 93, one of the four hijacked planes on Sep. 11, 2001, the first battle in the war on terror. This week, chalk artists from across the country are creating portraits, to honor those on board who attempted to retake control of the plane.

Flight 93 is the only hijacked plane from 9/11 that did not reach its intended target, believed to be Washington, D.C. Instead, it crashed in a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, killing the 40 passengers and crew members.

Erik Greenawalt, a chalk artist from Pittsburgh, will display his art, along with nine other artists, at the Flight 93 National Memorial near the crash site. Greenawalt said he is proud to create art on hallowed ground.

"Flight 93 is very close to our hearts, and still in our memory and still in our collective minds," Greenawalt reflected. "I think I, along with the artists, really recognize the solemnity of what it is that we're doing. And this is going to be one to memorialize those heroes from that day and, at least for a moment, let the visitors at the memorial see who those people were."

The portraits will be made on three-by-five-foot cement boards that are transportable in case of rain. The artists will use photos provided by the National Park Service, which runs the memorial.

Nate Baranowski, a Chicago-based chalk artist, visited the Flight 93 National Memorial during a road trip earlier this year and was moved by its tribute to the victims. He said he is looking forward to participating in the project, and using an art form like chalk is a great way to symbolically remember the lives lost on 9/11.

"Because in a lot of ways, honoring those on Flight 93 is honoring their lives, but also acknowledging the sort of ephemeral nature of life and how it is short in a lot of ways," Baranowski remarked. "It shows the beauty of lives, although tragically cut short."

More events at the memorial this weekend include a speaker series with local first responders and family members of Flight 93 passengers, as well as a lantern vigil.