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FERTILE, Minn. 鈥� For the people of Fertile, being nice is the norm. The town, after all, was named the Nicest Place in Minnesota by Reader鈥檚 Digest magazine, in 2019. Now in the age of COVID, residents are working to adapt to the pandemic while helping one another.

Jeannie Erickson owns Encore Family Consignment, in the northwest Minnesota town of about 850 people. She opted to close her store outright for two months, when Gov. Tim Walz鈥檚 mid-March executive order shuttered eating and drinking establishments to onsite customers and placed limits on other businesses. Erickson decided against doing curbside business; shopping in her store, she said, is like a treasure hunt.

鈥淭here's only one of everything in our store, and that's just too hard to do for us,鈥� Erickson said.

Her shop is open once again, and her customers have returned. On a pleasant Tuesday in late July, people could be seen searching the racks and chatting, before heading to the register. All customers were wearing masks, as were the staff. Erickson said her shop has been very busy since reopening.

鈥淵ep,鈥� she said. 鈥淪tuff going in and stuff going out.鈥�

Encore Family Consignment is on North Mill Street, the town鈥檚 main street. It鈥檚 a busy place. Shops and civic buildings line both sides of the street. Only one store front sits empty, a "for sale" sign hanging in the window. It鈥檚 a good look for a good-looking town of well-maintained houses, lawns and resurfaced streets.

But according to City Administrator Lisa Liden, the town has experienced the economic downturn the rest of the region and nation is suffering. Shops closed for a while, or operated in a limited capacity, until restrictions were loosened in June. The city itself is also operating in a somewhat limited fashion.

The community center is closed to the public, and room reservations for birthdays and graduations have been canceled. The city office, also located there, is closed to the public, though residents can still get services, such as building permits, by knocking on the door. The town has stopped renting kayaks for trips on the Sand Hill River, at its Agassiz Environmental Learning Center, after determining the sterilization protocols would be burdensome.

鈥淲e just felt it wasn't worthwhile to go through all those processes and procedures to do that so we haven't had those available to rent,鈥� Liden said, and added her office has received a lot of disappointed phone calls from enthusiasts.

Those are problems on the face of the town, but what often goes unseen is when a person faces food or housing insecurity. The Food Shelf Cash Assistance Program was born when a couple of Fertile residents decided to use their economic stimulus checks, issued to most American workers in June, to help those who lost a job to the pandemic, or had to shut down a business. The fund provides housing and utility-related assistance.

鈥淭hey said they didn't need it, they live simply, and they donated their stimulus checks, is how it got started,鈥� Liden said.

A follow-up article in the Fertile Journal had more people donating to the fund, $100 here, $200 there, until it hit $4,000. Of that amount, about $1,200 has been given out.

While Fertile residents can access the cash assistance program for housing needs, East Grand Forks-based North Country Food Bank has been lending a hand with community food drops, which are part of the U.S. Department of Agriculture鈥檚 Farmers to Families program funded by the CARES Act. North Country set up on Fertile鈥檚 fairgrounds in June and distributed boxes of food 鈥� frozen meat, dairy and produce 鈥� to 75 people. Another drop in July moved 200 boxes of meat alone.

The drops provide some welcome use for the fairgrounds. Fertile is home to the Polk County Fair, which was canceled in May because of restrictions on large gatherings and fair board members鈥� concerns about spreading COVID-19. The fair brings thousands of people to Fertile and represents a tremendous boost to local shops, gas stations and restaurants.

Not that all restaurants are exactly slow in Fertile. Mark Erickson has owned Erickson鈥檚 Smokehouse for 10 years, and he said he鈥檚 in it for the long haul. After about 10 weeks of being shut down to dine-in customers, he鈥檚 now open and busy to the point where he could hire a few more servers. He used that time, when the kitchen staff was busy making takeout meals, to put in new flooring on the smokehouse鈥檚 bar side and undertake other improvements he wouldn鈥檛 be able to do while fully open. Erickson credits his customers with wanting to make sure his restaurant, and others in smaller towns, stay open.

鈥淭hese smaller towns, they don't want to lose that only cafe or restaurant,鈥� he said. 鈥淚 think people have been really trying to support them, and I know we're grateful for that.鈥�

Erickson, when he isn鈥檛 running his smokehouse or the two food trucks he sends to other areas, supports fundraising for the school and the nursing home. He knows about the cash assistance program, but for him, food is his way to help.

鈥淲e've got this great ability to cook food, so I try to use that as what I do to help people,鈥� he said.

From the cash assistance program, to people picking up groceries for elderly residents and customers showing their support, Liden summed up the situation in Fertile like this:

鈥淭he biggest positive thing is just people looking out for each other.鈥�