BUFFALO, N.Y. — Each week, we highlight a Buffalo City Shaper - someone who is doing great things and is part of Buffalo's resurgence. As 2 On Your Side's Kelly Dudzik shows us, this week's City Shaper is busy doing several great things to spread her love of Buffalo to people around the world.
"I grew up in Grand Island, and I moved to the City of Buffalo, North Buffalo, about ten years ago. My husband is a Buffalo Public School teacher, so we had to move into the city for the living requirement. And, as soon as we moved into the city itself, I just fell in love with it," says Robson.
By day, Lindsay Robson is the social and digital media strategist for Perry's Ice Cream. That social media savviness carries over into a big project she started six years ago.
"I started thinking to myself, I need to get myself out of this spot that I'm in. I'm sick of being just bored, and tired, and sad, so I was thinking what do I love to do? What have I always loved? And, I've always loved writing," says Robson.
That's when Robson started her blog, Nickel City Pretty.
"I kind of wanted to showcase just how wonderful Buffalo is and how it's just more than snow and chicken wings, because I think that's a really important thing," she says.
Initially, Robson was talking about fashion.
"But, there's only so many things you can say about like a T-shirt or a dress. So, I started writing about the city itself. I started writing about the people, started writing about events, and I noticed those posts that I was writing starting to get more traction, and people were starting to get really excited," said Robson. "It got me to really play tourist in my own city and explore and get to meet new people and that's kind of why I started, I have a section on my blog called Nickel City Gritty where I interview local business owners, artists, musicians, just anyone in the community that is doing something really awesome and a lot of these people that I've interviewed have become really great friends of mine."
"What was the most surprising thing you found out about Buffalo when you started doing this?" asked Dudzik.
"The most surprising thing that I found about Buffalo is just how many people are doing incredible things. We have so many amazing local entrepreneurs, and the art scene, and the music scene. Buffalo may seem like a very small city to a lot of people and very unassuming, but the people that are here doing these things are making waves," says Robson.
"How important is that for someone like you to be out there doing that and being like this ambassador for everything awesome that's happening?" asked Dudzik.
"I think it's crazy important. So, I actually started the Buffalo Blogging Network about two years ago," she says.
The Buffalo Blogging Network has grown from just a couple of bloggers to more than 130. They host monthly networking events at restaurants, bars and clubs.
"We have mommy bloggers, and food bloggers, and there's people that are interested in fitness, and people just doing like lifestyle and some people are doing fashion," says Robson. "I also on top of that I have a podcast with three of my friends. It's called When's Food and we started that two months ago, I think. One day we were all just sitting around and we're like we're really funny and we should start a podcast, and one of the things that we always talk about when we were together we were like, okay, we can go and hangout, but like when are we going to get food? When we are just going to go eat? So, we're like we're just going to call it When's Food."
New episodes of When's Food come out every Wednesday.
If you know someone who would make a great City Shaper, just send Kelly an email.