Season One Series Intro

Meet The Host

Hello, I’m your host, Brie Mittan. I’m so excited to finally be sharing this series with you.

I love Astoria and I’m guessing if you’re listening to this, so do you. But I want to ask, how many Astoria neighbors do you know personally? If you’re like me, up until recently, it wasn’t a lot. During the pandemic, my heart broke seeing so many businesses have to close and it left me wishing I could help. Thus the Astoria Podcast was born but it took a while to get going. I had to learn a lot about interviewing and producing a show all while becoming a new mom.

Over the past year, I’ve collected a series of interviews from local business owners. But rather than just have them tell me about their products or services I wanted to get to know them on a personal level. You see, studies show that if a person feels an actual connection to a business they will shop there more often and choose to support that business over a competitor. And so the more we shop local the more our community thrives, everyone knows this.

But here is the kicker, that common knowledge used to be what motivated me to make this show but after having my daughter, I had a new sense of purpose. You see I grew up in the midwest in a town with roughly 16,000 people. Astoria is home to over 95,000 people. How was I going to make this big neighborhood have that small-town, close-knit feel that I enjoyed growing up? I realized that I not only needed to get out and meet my neighbors but I needed to share some of myself with you as well.

Producing this first season of the Astoria Podcast has opened my eyes to all the innovation, authenticity, and love that so many have for this neighborhood. It’s made me lie awake at night, smiling, knowing I get to raise my daughter here. I hope by hearing these interviews you will experience those same feelings and possibly be inspired to get to know your Astoria neighbors as well.

Thank you for listening and if you like the show please subscribe, rate, and share it with as many people as you can. And I will keep working on bringing you these thoughtful conversions with people in our community.

Brie Mittan and her lil podcasting assistant.