FRANKLIN LIVING—

We have so many exciting things going on at RCS, but one thing we are very excited about right now is our partnership with the City of Russellville on the “Shop Russellville 1st” campaign, which encourages those who live and work in Russellville to shop at and support local businesses inside the city limits.

We chose to partner with the city on this campaign because shopping local increases sales tax revenue, and RCS receives a portion of the sales tax revenue from the city. If sales tax revenue increases, that means increased funding for our schools, which means more money for things like our fine arts department classes and organizations, our extracurricular activities, our career tech department, our athletic programs and even salaries to help employ enough people in these areas and others.

This is also an amazing opportunity for some of our students who are specifically interested in leadership and business to work on an actual project that will help our community as well as local business owners and their employees.

Our students involved in the Russellville High School Youth Leadership Academy, as well as Career and Technical Education students taking the entrepreneurship class, will be brainstorming ideas, creating graphics and promotional material and executing the campaign. The work they do will have a direct impact on the local economy as well as our city schools. It’s something they can take pride in, and it will also be something they can use on a resume to help them once they enter the business world after graduation.

We are always excited to give our students real, hands-on experience in fields they are interested in, and this was a great way to do that while also helping our city. We hope the community will step up and support their efforts in this campaign.

Please join us as we “Shop Russellville 1st” and support our city, schools and local business owners.

Heath Grimes is the superintendent of Russellville City Schools. He and his wife Amy have three daughters: Leah, Halle and Erin.