At the intersection of Main and Court streets on a comfortably cool Friday night in October, dozens of people wait in line for barbecue, lemonade and mini pies, awash in overhead street lights. In the darker corners of Scottsville’s downtown square, pockets of people linger to chat with neighbors, some who they haven’t seen in years.

In one area, kids paint pumpkins that will be sprinkled throughout the downtown area as decorations until Halloween. In another, a candidate in an upcoming local election passes out her card. All around, vendors are selling food, T-shirts, jewelry, tumblers and fresh produce.

It’s the return of a sense of community that Scottsville hasn’t seen in a while, said Hannah Allston Brooks, director of Heart of Scottsville, a nonprofit that has been spearheading the revitalization of downtown for over two decades.

In 2000, Scottsville joined the Main Street program, a national project whose mission is to recenter communities around more vibrant, economically sound and inviting downtowns. In 2001, the Scottsville Downtown Commercial Historic District was added to the National Registry of Historic Places.

Since then, through $2.3 million worth of grants to Heart of Scottsville, each downtown quadrant within a one-block radius of the town square has been methodically renovated to be more walkable, historically appropriate, attractive to businesses and amenable to community gatherings.

The drawn-out process is finally coming to a close; delayed renovation of a stretch of North Court Street is all that’s remaining.

“In wrapping up that 20-year project, we had to ask ourselves a question – ‘How are we going to continue to be of use and be helpful to the community?’ ” Brooks said. “What do we do next?”

Brooks moved back to her Scottsville hometown after several years away right in time for the onset of the pandemic. She saw how COVID was hurting small businesses and making locals realize that they had taken small town community for granted for years.

“If I don’t come downtown because I don’t want to, that’s one thing, but when someone tells you that you can’t go all of a sudden, that’s a very different feeling,” Brooks said. “When it wasn’t an option anymore, we realized how much it mattered. And so we kind of came out of (the pandemic) with a fighting spirit of we’re gonna do this again, we’re gonna bring that (community) back.”

Since last April, First Fridays have been Heart of Scottsville’s way of continuing the revitalization of downtown even after all the physical renovations are over. On the first Friday evening of each month from April to December, local and regional vendors set up in the square and people from all over the county gather together.

“People linger,” Brooks said. “They don’t just pass through and grab food. They linger, they hang out and they reconnect.”

The events double as a reintroduction to downtown for the many who haven’t bothered to visit in years, Brooks said. People can check out the new businesses that started during the pandemic – surprisingly, quite a few – and see what Heart of Scottsville has accomplished through the Main Street program.

Kaylee Ragland, owner of T-shirt shop Blooming Grace Designs, said that she’s been coming to First Fridays since December 2021. She started with only one little crate of shirts to sell, but has grown in the past year to two entire racks of crates.

“It’s really good for Scottsville and helping bring in revenue for small businesses,” she said.

Pam Ragland was helping her daughter at the Oct. 7 First Friday. She said that the event reminds her of Moonlight Madness, a Scottsville tradition around the 1980s in which stores around the square would stay open late on certain special nights because it allows the community to mingle.

Brie Golliher, The Pie Queen, was selling mini pies Friday night out of her mobile storefront. She’s been a part of First Fridays since the beginning, and has amassed a group of regulars.

“It’s been great and you can tell that it’s slowly becoming a monthly tradition for all the community,” Golliher said. “It’s gotten a little bit better each time.”