Building Better Businesses: Local First’s Tucson Triumphs

View a Past Interview with Jessica Barfield

Welcome to another episode of “Life Along the Streetcar,” where we celebrate the unique culture, people, and stories of Tucson. In this episode, we delve into the impactful work of Local First Arizona with Southern Arizona Director, Jessica Barfield. From securing substantial grants to promoting sustainability, Local First Arizona is dedicated to building a stronger community by empowering local businesses.

Episode Highlights

• Growth of Local First Arizona in Tucson: Expanding from one person to a full team, demonstrating increased community support.
• Arizona Economic Recovery Center: Secured $21 million for the Hopi tribe’s solar energy project.
• Navigator Grant: Allocated $12 million to support small businesses, with over $2 million benefiting Tucson.
• Sustainability Programs: Helping businesses reduce environmental impact while saving costs.
• Forza Local Program: Six-month business accelerator for Spanish-speaking entrepreneurs.
• Good Food Forum and Expo: Connecting local food entrepreneurs with buyers on August 27th.

The Mission of Local First Arizona

Local First Arizona is on a mission to create equitable systems for local businesses, ensuring that entrepreneurs and communities have the resources needed for success. The organization operates statewide, offering programs that address the unique needs of urban and rural areas alike. By fostering economic development, sustainability, and community collaboration, Local First Arizona is building a better future for all Arizonans.

“Our goal is to ensure that local businesses have the tools and support they need to thrive,” said Jessica Barfield. “When local businesses succeed, the entire community benefits.”

Over the years, Local First Arizona has achieved significant milestones. They have expanded their team in Tucson, increased their statewide reach, and secured millions in funding to support local initiatives. This growth reflects the community’s commitment to supporting local enterprises and building a resilient economy.

Current Programs and Initiatives

Arizona Economic Recovery Center

The Arizona Economic Recovery Center was established during the pandemic to help local businesses and communities secure vital grants. One of the center’s most notable achievements was securing a $21 million grant for the Hopi tribe to go completely solar. This initiative not only promotes sustainability but also provides economic resilience.

Contact: Email [email protected] or call (602) 956-0909 for more information.

Navigator Grant

The Navigator Grant program brought $12 million to support small businesses, with over $2 million specifically benefiting Tucson. This program created a hub-and-spoke model, partnering with organizations like Startup Tucson and CIC to distribute funds and support local businesses.

Contact: Email [email protected] or visit Local First Arizona.

Sustainability Programs

Local First Arizona’s sustainability programs help businesses reduce their environmental impact while saving costs. The programs guide businesses on how to utilize rebates from the Inflation Reduction Act and improve operational sustainability, from delivery fleets to packaging and sourcing.

Contact: Email [email protected] for program details.

Forza Local Program

Forza Local is a six-month business accelerator designed for Spanish-speaking entrepreneurs. The program offers comprehensive training and support, covering all aspects of running a business. It is free for participants and aims to foster economic diversity and inclusivity.

Contact: Email [email protected] or visit Forza Local for application details.

Good Food Forum and Expo

Scheduled for August 27th, the Good Food Forum and Expo is an event that connects local food entrepreneurs with buyers and restaurateurs. The event features educational workshops and an expo for food artisans looking to enter the wholesale market.

Contact: Email [email protected] for more information.

Conclusion and Calls to Action

Local First Arizona continues to make a significant impact on Tucson and the broader Arizona community. By supporting local businesses, promoting sustainability, and driving economic recovery, they are building a better future for all.

“We are dedicated to helping local businesses thrive and creating a resilient community,” said Jessica Barfield. “The work we do today will benefit generations to come.”

For more information about Local First Arizona, or to get involved with their programs, contact Jessica Barfield at [email protected].

If you know of an important subject or personality that should be featured on “Life Along the Streetcar,” contact Tom Heath at [email protected].

Thank you for being a part of our community and supporting local businesses in Tucson. Together, we can make a difference!

Tom Heath
Good morning. It’s a beautiful Sunday in the Old Pueblo. And you’re listening to Kate Tucson. Thank you for spending a particular brunch hour with us on your downtown Tucson. A community sponsored, all volunteer powered rock n roll radio station. This week, we got to speak with Jessica Barfield, Southern Arizona director for Local First Arizona. You’re going to hear that Jessica is passionately advocating for local businesses, and has been instrumental in creating some opportunities here in Tucson.

Tom Heath
We’re also going discuss the local First National well, which is a statewide success and exciting initiatives that await us here in southern Arizona. Today is June 2nd, 2024. My name is Tom Heath, and you’re listening to Life Along the Streetcar. Each and every Sunday, our focus is on social, cultural and economic impacts in Tucson’s urban core, and we shed light on hidden gems everyone should know about from a mountain to the University of Arizona and all stops in between.

Tom Heath
You get the inside track right here on 99.1 FM streaming on downtown radio.org. Also available on your iPhone or Android by getting our very own Downtown Radio Tucson app. And if you want to interact with us directly here on the show, Facebook and Instagram, or the best ways to do that, we are life along the street car on both of those platforms.

Tom Heath
And if you want more information about us, our show, the book, or some other past episodes, you can head over to Life Along the Street, Car Dawg, and of course, our podcast is out there for you to listen. Well, it hasn’t been too long ago that Jessica Barfield started in her role in Southern Arizona, and we did an interview soon after she got here enrolling in Tucson and just had so many plans and ideas, but really was not able to implement any of it until she got rolling.

Tom Heath
And now I going on, I think two years at this point she is rolling and these plans are doing really well. So we sat down with her and recorded an interview with her just a few days ago at the the shops, their proper shops, a studio on that side of the Tucson Gallery.

Tom Heath
Well, welcome back, Jessica, to life along the streetcar. It’s been a while since we first spoke.

Jessica Barfield
Yeah, I think it’s been just over a year. Perhaps.

Tom Heath
Yeah. So when? When we first met, you were on the job for like, 23 minutes, I think, or something like that.

Jessica Barfield
It sure felt that way. I was a couple months into my job at local First Arizona here in Tucson.

Tom Heath
well, we featured local first multiple times, so if people want to get more, they can head over to the website to learn about the, all those details. But can you give us kind of that brief overview of what you do? Because I know you love that question, since there’s nothing brief about local first.

Jessica Barfield
Right? You’re right. There really isn’t. There is quite a bit of work we do, but Local First is a statewide organization that’s on a mission to create equitable systems for local businesses and ensure our local entrepreneurs and communities have the resources they need to be successful. So it’s all about the local community and the businesses within them.

Tom Heath
That’s the most succinct definition I’ve ever heard, because you start to talk about rural programs and sustainability programs and Spanish programs and, oh, know economic growth and shop local and the importance. But you can you very well some that up. It’s like you’ve been practicing this.

Jessica Barfield
I you know what? And I guarantee it’s a lot more succinct than it was a year and a half ago when I was still learning about all those things you just mentioned. You know, because you’re right. There’s a lot that goes into building a strong economy in the state of Arizona.

Tom Heath
Well, what about building a strong local first? Because again, when when we first met you were it you were Tucson. Yeah. And I understand you’ve you’ve grown slightly.

Jessica Barfield
We have. We’ve grown quite a bit, actually. I’m coming up on two years with the organization now. And, you know, and if you think back, we were kind of coming out of Covid and starting to meet local business owners where they were at and figure out exactly what it was the community needed. fast forward nearly two years now, and we are a full time team of four in the business coalition here in Tucson.

Tom Heath
Or I thought it was, what did you just add somebody?

Jessica Barfield
We did. Well, we have four so I just myself there’s next finale. We have Anna Chavan and Moises Gomez here. Local full time in Tucson.

Tom Heath
Okay.

Jessica Barfield
And counting yourself as counting myself in that story, but those are all out in the community.

Tom Heath
Okay, yeah, I did. You did you recently hire somebody?

Jessica Barfield
we did actually. We’re hiring somebody, to work within our food systems group.

Tom Heath
That’s what it.

Jessica Barfield
Was. Yeah. And they’ll be joining the team, I believe, next month. And so that’ll make us a team of five here in Tucson. And to really be.

Tom Heath
So my surprise was not completely out of the, the ordinary there.

Jessica Barfield
Now that.

Tom Heath
I thought I had heard.

Jessica Barfield
Rumors. Yeah. And the rumors are right. We continue to grow not only in membership, but also in followers and and support from the community. We’ve had a lot of growth over the couple couple of years I’ve been here, and I feel like we’re just starting to take off in terms of the programing we’re offering to the community and really getting, a highlight on those local businesses like I’m here in Tucson.

Tom Heath
So now that you’ve got, a team that’s focused on specific areas of the mission, where do you spend your time? What is what is your your sort of daily routine?

Jessica Barfield
Yeah, absolutely. here in Tucson, my time is spent working on partnerships, making sure that we understand what the community needs, that we’re not duplicating efforts and that we’re supporting our partners where they need us, and that we’re also finding holes within our local ecosystem to offer educational workshops and, ensure that my team here in Tucson and our statewide team, are using the expertise that we have to really support our local community.

Tom Heath
Yeah, I think that’s that’s part of the puzzle that gets a little bit lost in translation. You’ve got a state team, and this is not just the great state of Maricopa. It’s you have Yuma, you’ve got, Flagstaff. You’ve got all kinds of people on the ground in these communities.

Jessica Barfield
Absolutely. We do have our team in in Phoenix, but we also have an entire rural team that’s working throughout southern Arizona. In northern Arizona, we have full staff, full time staff up in Flagstaff now, there really isn’t a part of the state that we’re not active in, in terms of providing services, and having partnerships.

Tom Heath
How big is the organization in general, staff wise?

Jessica Barfield
general staff lives. We are somewhere between 50 and 60 at this point, which is considerable. prior to Covid, I believe we were less than ten. So we’ve experienced a lot of growth in terms of staff, but also in terms of reach.

Tom Heath
Well, when, and again, if you’re listening and want to find out more about the interview we did with Jessica after she started, that’s on the, on the website, lifelong street car just putting local first or Jessica Barfield in you, you’ll get that information. The, the focus of that, that conversation that was mostly local first and its impact during Covid, the money that the millions of dollars that it helped to reallocate from federal government getting it into some of the communities in Tucson that, had not, really participated in some of the Covid relief funds.

Jessica Barfield
Right, absolutely.

Tom Heath
But but now that that past is past. So, like, what are some of the things that you’re working on right now?

Jessica Barfield
Well, I will just say that through Covid, one of the things that was created by Local First was the Arizona, Economic Recovery Center. That’s now the resource center because we were so successful in gaining grants, both federal, state private grants and bringing money into the state of Arizona, we were able to create a full time, ongoing department to handle, not, you know, requests from not for profits and communities that don’t have grant writers.

Jessica Barfield
So we’re still working on that grant side of things and continuing the work that started during Covid. But in terms of building our business.

Tom Heath
But on the on the grant side. So what is an example of of a community that in a grant in a, in a connection that goes to local first.

Jessica Barfield
Yeah, absolutely. you know, it’s it’s kind of crazy to say, but over the last three years, we officially just had $81 million brought into the state of Arizona. And that sounds Intermountain, Bill. But I do want to say 21 million was one grant that was given to the Hopi tribe. Okay, they will be going completely solar. And we were able to help write that.

Jessica Barfield
Grant, go after the federal dollars and bring in $21 million to help one of our tribes go completely solar. And that will, to our knowledge, be the first, I believe tribe that has trying to do this, and become 100% resilient.

Tom Heath
did they approach you for help or did you reach out because you saw a need? You remember how that connected? I know it’s not really southern Arizona, but I can be curious.

Jessica Barfield
Yeah, to be honest, I’m not exactly sure how that particular, that particular grant came to be. However, we do have a department that is focused on just tribal relations and going out and working with, you know, those those communities throughout the state. And so we’ve been doing outreach. We’ve been working here with the Pasco Yaqui Tribe, and the Tohono O’odham tribe to, help them just organize some of their strategy and the way that they’re operating, which has been fantastic.

Jessica Barfield
We’ve been really just helping with listening sessions and bringing leaders together. there’s some great work going in in terms of, food justice and sovereignty. They’re doing some great things. and so in terms of who found who for that grant, I’m not sure, but we do have two full time grant writers in that recovery center, or two full time staff that works with a team of grant writers, should I say, at the recovery center.

Jessica Barfield
And what they do is they go out and they find grants to Arizona businesses or communities or tribes, would qualify for and, they keep an updated database, but they also have a database from all of the different organizations that have reached out asking for help so that we can find collaborators. What we found is whenever we bring people together that have like minded missions, visions, or compliment each other, we’re a lot more, competitive to go after these grants.

Jessica Barfield
And so we kind of have a database, and when we get grants, we look into that, into our database and figure out who might be the right partners, to apply for those grants, you know, and so that is a full time department and something that we have ongoing, at local first year on it.

Tom Heath
But then back here in southern Arizona. Well, I mean, of course, that is part of southern Arizona, but and your and your role, are your partnerships that you’re working on? A you’re interacting more with businesses, with people, with, with individuals, organizations.

Jessica Barfield
More with businesses. a lot of the members are local. First, Arizona, we kind of have a spread, but a lot of have 0 to 10 employees. And so we really work with businesses to help strengthen, you know, their education. Like what is it that they need that we can help them get. So we have monthly networking events where we encourage, you know, business owners to come out and, find collaborative partners in the community to do business with.

Jessica Barfield
But we also do educational workshops depending on what our members need. And we’re spending a lot of time, I’m covering opportunities. We have some programing, such as our sustainable programing, where we help small businesses or any Arizona business up into the large, larger scale projects. take a look at their footprint. What is it that they’re doing in terms of their operations?

Jessica Barfield
that’s having an environmental impact. And what changes could they make to improve that impact? And their bottom dollar, like keep more money in that company so they can reallocate those resources and strengthen their business elsewhere.

Tom Heath
You know. So so you’re saving their money and and they’re also saving the planet in the meantime.

Jessica Barfield
Right. For sure. And,

Tom Heath
I don’t want to be that sustainable guy, but I do want to save a little few dollars here and there. So.

Jessica Barfield
Right. If you could be in it for one reason or the other, we’re in it for both. It’s to help that business. And what we’ve found is some businesses have really been able to take advantage of the current rebates that are out there. There’s a lot of money that came out, through the Inflation Reduction Act lately and for both residential and commercial opportunities.

Jessica Barfield
And so we have, my system is on our staff that’s really an expert in helping businesses tap into that and find ways to save money and, and reallocate those in an impactful way for their business.

Tom Heath
Do you find that you have to be the, the building owner or is it it kind of business operate within like at least space that the.

Jessica Barfield
You know, a lot of times it helps in terms of rebates to have a physical location. However, there are businesses that we’ve helped that they have delivery services because maybe they need to change out their automobile. That’s part of going sustainable, and there’s rebates out there for that. If they’re shipping, if they’re doing a lot of procurement or delivery, like there’s a whole lot of ways to look at the way you’re packing your projects, where you’re sourcing your items.

Jessica Barfield
All of that matters in terms of sustainability. So there’s a lot that we can do if you have physical, physical products that are being sold and shipped, you know, in terms of sustainability as well.

Tom Heath
We’ll talk about some more of local first Arizona with Jessica Barfield in just a moment, I want to remind you that you’re listening to lifelong the Streetcar in downtown radio 99.1 FM, and we’re streaming on downtown radio.org.

Speaker 5
Support for downtown radio was provided by the Tucson Gallery, located in downtown Tucson, inside of the proper shops at 300 East Congress Street, the Tucson Gallery offers original work, reproductions, and merchandise from Tucson artists like Joe Patrick, Jessica Gonzalez, Ignacio Garcia, and many more. For information about all of the artists, including when they will be live at the Gallery, head to the Tucson gallery.com or find them on Instagram and on Facebook.

Speaker 5
As Tucson Gallery.

Tom Heath
If you’re just joining us, our guest is Jessica Barfield. She’s the Southern Arizona director for Local First. Arizona, has accomplished quite a bit in a short amount of time on the job here in southern Arizona. We did interview her a couple of months after she started this role. And if you head over to our website, Lifelong streetcar.org, and put in her name, Jessica Barfield, her local first Arizona, that story will come up and you get a lot of her background because she has a very interesting background, economic development as, marketing and a few other areas that really is kind of tied into what she’s doing with local first.

Tom Heath
So this, this time around, we are talking much more about the organization and the programs, and, we’ll get into the second half of that interview here talking about some of their partnerships and other opportunities in Tucson.

Tom Heath
And I say partnership wise, I’m also seeing a lot of times where the name Local First Arizona is connected to, like a startup coalition or a pitch competition or something where you are participating or supporting and you’re helping each other out. But it seems like your local first name is attached to a lot of things in the community.

Jessica Barfield
That’s a really good point. And to kind of brings us back to your first question. When you were asking about grants. So during Covid, we were really, we were really active in going out and applying for money as a and one of the grants that we were successful at bringing to, the state was the navigator grant.

Jessica Barfield
We received $12 million to help support small businesses. And what we did is we developed a spoken hub kind of model where we went out into the community and we found partners like our local partners, like startup Tucson, Startup, You Need us, the CIC Arizona Growth Partners, and we are able to find some of the work they were doing in the community during Covid, behind the scenes to get their programing out there.

Jessica Barfield
And so whenever they’re out doing some of their workshops that have been funded through the navigator grant, you’ll see our name attached. And a lot of times we are also supporting at those events because we ended up I know we topped over 2 million brought in into the Tucson area through the navigator grant. that has been realized through programing, in our community over the last, you know, two years.

Tom Heath
Wow. That’s I think that goes back to, some of the original comments, which are there’s so many threads to local. First, it’s hard to summarize it in a, in a little elevator, a little elevator pitch.

Jessica Barfield
Right. Well know, collaboration is at the core of what we do. And so you’ll see us working with partners on these pitch events and all of these events. If if it’s benefiting our local business community, we’re going to try and support how we can and get our members involved, because a lot of times we know business owners are busy working in their business.

Jessica Barfield
And so, we take that role of helping to ensure they’re aware of educational opportunities and opportunities to grow and collaborate.

Tom Heath
Yeah, it’s funny what I was, I’m more of a supporter. and I’ve been a local first for years, but when I was more of a supporter, I was able to attend a lot of these events. And since I’ve, reached out and opened a few businesses and I don’t have the time to go to some of the events anymore, so I can feel their pain like this is what I needed the most.

Tom Heath
Well, it’s hard to get out.

Jessica Barfield
You’re right. So we’re gonna have to bring more events to you. Like I had show up.

Tom Heath
speaking of that, businesses, you know, obviously it’s local for us, so you have to be a locally owned business. Yeah, to get in.

Jessica Barfield
Absolutely. So all of the businesses within our organization, you have to be local. And the owners need to live in the state of Arizona. What we know is whenever you have local business owners that are involved in the in the business, they tend to have better business. They tend to be more involved in giving back to their community.

Jessica Barfield
as a consumer, that truly matters. And that’s one thing that we constantly talk about is keep your money local. Let’s figure out how we can spend our money locally, because we know if we go out and spend $100 at a box retailer, $13 stays in our community. That’s basically the people that they’re paying and the utilities, right?

Jessica Barfield
There’s not a whole lot left of of the money. But whenever we go out and we support a local business, we spend $100 and around $45 stays local. And that matters because, you know, our local businesses oftentimes pay for local advertising. They pay to have someone manage their website locally. Their money stays local and it helps generate jobs.

Jessica Barfield
And so, you know, that is something that we’re constantly reminding consumers is what is it that you spend money often on that you could buy locally? I always I always encourage people to start with 10%. Think about Christmas time, think about gifts. That’s an easy one to go local and a fun one. But even things like office supply as we have places.

Jessica Barfield
What are you printing? Where are you going? We have a directory. Go to our website. You can look for any kind of service or goods and find someone locally that are doing it here in Arizona.

Tom Heath
And is there. If I’m a business and I want to go local even, but I’m just concerned about cost or like I don’t want to go to a directory if I can just go online, click some buttons, get stuff delivered to me. That’s easy. That’s worth at the time and for some challenges of going local. Right? Right.

Jessica Barfield
There are one of the things I remind business owners of is people want to go local, but they won’t. If local sucks, right? Like, I want to spend my money locally, but if I don’t have a good alternative, you’re making it really hard, right? So we try and empower our businesses with the tools that they need to be online to have that present or figure out what their niche is.

Jessica Barfield
and another thing to think about if if you own a business and you’re thinking, well, how can I maybe change the way that I’m buying my products and make those local reach out to local? First, we actually have a program called source A-Z where we will help you find those contractors that are local, either through an RFP process, or we will go to our directory and provide you some of those, some of that information.

Jessica Barfield
one of our really awesome partners is West, a local, office supply company. They are in Arizona and based in Arizona. They’ll deliver. They will they have a website just as good, if better, than Amazon or Office. You know, all of those bigger words I’m not going to use. Oh, just as convenient.

Tom Heath
Oh some throw downs here a long street car. We’re going to start a national international scene here.

Jessica Barfield
Just as convenient. But they’re here.

Tom Heath
And so so how do businesses individuals, people that want to learn more, they want to get involved. They want to get connected. What’s their next step?

Jessica Barfield
Local first daisy.com is a place you can go to get more information. you can find our directory of businesses. You can also see our staff and all of the information is there based upon what you’re looking for. Because there is so much for us or simply go to our event calendar. Like I said, we have networking events the first Wednesday of every month.

Jessica Barfield
We’d love for business owners to come out community members are welcome to you if you want to learn about local. This is a great place to actually meet local business owners and figure out who you’re supporting, as well as learn more about the local business that we’re popping up. It’s up. So, our next one is, at the at Catalina Brewers actually in June, and that’s up on the northwest side of town.

Jessica Barfield
But it’s a really cool brewery. I don’t know if you have ever been there. It’s a pretty big space for games.

Tom Heath
And I’ve heard good things I’ve not been.

Jessica Barfield
So we’re popping up there in June. maybe.

Tom Heath
That’s the one I’ll.

Jessica Barfield
Make. Maybe that’s it. I’d love to have you come, but you’re always welcome at any of our events. that we do.

Tom Heath
The, I kind of screwed this up because the purpose of this interview is to talk about all these programs that you’ve launched, all these things you’ve done. And I. I got us off track with all the the cool stuff that, is happening. So I think we’re trying to get you to come back at some point and, and talk, but are there any things.

Tom Heath
Right, like sort of upcoming that, that really need to get out there. Yeah.

Jessica Barfield
I’ll tell I have two quick things that I will just kind of tell you about in the very first one is I’m excited to tell you are bringing it back for So Local, and that is a business accelerator program that is meant for Spanish speaking businesses. it’s a six month program. It’s free to participants, and during that six months they really learn every aspect of owning a business.

Jessica Barfield
So this could be someone who has a really great, foundation of an idea that they want to bring to life, or a local business owner that got into business for the passion of of what they’re selling or doing, but needs a little bit of help on fundamentals. so you can go on to our website, local first A-Z dot com, and you can find the area for, for us and local.

Jessica Barfield
And there’s an application and all the information about that program, available there. Or you can email me Jessica at local first A-Z dot com and we will get you the information you need. and then second, just something fun. we are a statewide organization. We do a lot of work with food. The Good Food Forum and Expo is going to be held in Tucson this August.

Jessica Barfield
So it’s a half day of education. about the local food ecosystem. It’s really meant for people that are food entrepreneurs, restaurant tours, people that are growing. there’s a lot of people growing food in southern Arizona. When in.

Tom Heath
August.

Jessica Barfield
August 27th. Okay. So it’s a Tuesday and it’s going to be at the alchemy store. So the first half of the day, you know, there’s educational workshops and then the second half is an expo for food artisans that are looking to really get into wholesale. We bring in purchasers and people, restaurateurs, to come and look at local brands and figure out, you know, what they can carry and how they can collaborate and help them get into the food market here.

Tom Heath
Well, if you’re not familiar at local first Arizona, my first thought when I heard about them a decade plus ago was it’s a buy local campaign. And I’ve learned over the years it is certainly about advocating for that local business. But it it really is about strengthening communities and economic security. well, beyond just that and using, the data behind being a local business and the impact of community.

Tom Heath
So I really appreciate how, intricate the web is. And I’m I’m excited to have you in Tucson. It’s been a busy couple of years. Well, we’ll get you back in a few months. It’ll be, like all explosion of more stuff.

Jessica Barfield
I hope so, because, we’ve been busy, but it’s been the right kind of busy. It’s been really great for our businesses. And I’m excited, for the opportunities that lie ahead. Thank you so much for having me.

Tom Heath
Oh, my pleasure. We’ll talk soon.

Jessica Barfield
Sounds good.

Tom Heath
Jessica Barfield, southern Arizona director for local First Arizona. Busy, busy, busy. Her organization is, doing amazing things across the state. Locally, their team is growing and having much more impact. Local First has had huge success in southern Arizona. Around the time of Covid, things kind of waned. and took a while to get back on, kind of on their feet, so to speak.

Tom Heath
But they are. And Jessica is leading that charge, so appreciate her time. Well, my name is Tom Heath and you are listening to lifelong the Streetcar in downtown radio 99.12 FM and streaming on downtown radio.org. You’re listening to CD.

Tom Heath
Tucson, Arizona 90.

Tom Heath
9.1 FM, Downtown Radio.

Tom Heath
brother Mark, host of a show called Radio Club Crawl that airs every Tuesday at 3 p.m.. We try to focus on most of the bands that are coming through Tucson, and we give you a tasty taste of their music. You want to check out what’s happening around Tucson? Check out Radio Club Crawl Tuesdays, 3 p.m. right here on CTN.

Tom Heath
Tucson, Arizona.

Tom Heath
99.1.

Tom Heath
FM Downtown Radio.

Tom Heath
Thank you very much.

Speaker 1
Enjoy your evening.

Tom Heath
Bye bye. And thank you to Jessica Barfield for, coming on again and talking about all the cool things happening at Local First Arizona. And again, if you want more of her backstory, head over to Lifelong streetcar.org and we will be glad to, to share that with you there. Just Google or put in the search bar there, Jessica Barfield or local first Arizona.

Tom Heath
Well, we’re wrapping up episode 297, but don’t go anywhere because Ted Brzezinski words and work is coming up in just a few minutes. And then at the top of the hour, it’s, Ty Logan. Well, welcome to June. It’s starting to warm up a little bit out there. So remember to, stay hydrated and, when possible, stay indoors.

Tom Heath
That’s my plan. Well, we’re, excited about the things coming up here in the summer. You got next week, a show with, the creators of a new product in Tucson called the Timber Tote. If you haven’t heard about this, you probably will soon. It’s gaining a lot of traction, and it came from an unlikely collaboration.

Tom Heath
And we’re gonna have the two of them, on the show next week. Well, if you ever have anything you want us to cover, make sure to, let us know through Facebook and Instagram. Or you can email contact at Life Along the Street car.org. We would certainly love to know more about what you want to know. Well, just Portis is our production specialist.

Tom Heath
My name is Tom Heath. The host and producer. Ryan Hood starts the show each week with music. And we’re leaving you today with this living the interlopers, because I heard her first perform this song at a local first Arizona event back in 2019. This is the entry to the NPR Little Desk series. The. And, the song is called Black Listed.

Tom Heath
Hope you have a great week and tune in next Sunday for more life along the streetcar.