 With destination downtown and the Small Business Revolution Contest, enthusiasm in the Brainerd business community is at an all-time high. Clayton Castle was at tonight's River to Rail rally, laying out the next steps to the city's revitalization. It's been two weeks since Brainerd found out it was not in the top five in the Small Business Revolution Contest, but tonight the River to Rail rally kicked off the next step of the downtown Brainerd revitalization. We're about supporting the people that are doing things in town. We're about doing the little things that are going to clean up downtown and take pride in our community. And we think as part of that, if we have a vision for a bigger Brainerd and a better environment, that that will come over time. The event included updates from area businesses and organizations on what they're doing to improve the community, which was followed by a brainstorming session creating ideas and dreams of a better Brainerd. We had more ideas than we probably know what to do with at this point, but we have them all recorded and now the next step is going to be making a list of priorities and really moving the community forward. Whether it's with hotels, restaurants or new businesses, the mission is to make Brainerd a thriving core for the surrounding area and a place where one can live, work and play. We know they're going to the lakes country. We know they're going outside of Brainerd, but every one of those people visit here and we want to give them a reason to come back downtown. Area business owners and managers are taking notice and realize the importance of a thriving downtown to the vitality of an entire community as evident by the showing at tonight's rally. As a rally point, it's helping people to connect on a common ground where we can build vision for and have people who have vision cast that and allow people to catch the vision and then walk away with a sense of ownership, activating people. With the growing enthusiasm from last summer's destination downtown contest to this past winter's small business revolution contest, community leaders see a bright future ahead for Brainerd. 250 people instead of posting on social media actually came out and started dreaming about the future and I think that bodes very well for the future of the community. Reporting in Brainerd, Clayton Castle, Lakeland News. Some of the ideas floated around in the brainstorming session included a children's museum, improved trails and new hotels. If you enjoyed this segment of Lakeland News, please consider making a tax-deductible contribution to Lakeland PBS.