Kendy Alvarez wasn’t thrilled with the question.
“Oh, you're trying to get me in trouble,” she said with a laugh. “That’s a tough one for me to answer.”
The query — ”Where should I go in Lewisburg?” — seemed benign enough, but for a mayor it’s a minefield.
Still, Alvarez, worried about leaving anyone out, agrees to give it a shot.
She mentions downtown’s iconic three-globe street lights and its Hallmark movie aesthetic. The secondhand stores, boutiques, and artist co-op. The relative lack of a corporate footprint there: “I think the only chain that exists downtown is Sweet Frog.”
She continues, seemingly gaining steam.
“You can see a movie in our iconic Campus Theater that's been fully restored to its art deco glory, or stop for something to eat and drink in the many restaurants and watering holes throughout downtown. If you're ever bored, it's because you're not paying attention.”
The Lewisburg area has changed since Alvarez first arrived from Trinidad and Tobago at the age of five. She remembers more farmland and less traffic. Several Bucknell University campus buildings weren’t there yet, and the greater Susquehanna Valley was slower and less diverse.
“We've got Middle Eastern restaurants now. We have a pretzel place [run by members of the Plain community],” Alvarez notes. “When we talk about diversity, we're talking about, like, the full spectrum. Younger people are starting businesses in downtown Lewisburg. One is our bicycle shop, CycleUp.”
Alvarez has changed too, at least on paper: Seven years ago she became a U.S. citizen after decades as a green card holder, writing in a Facebook post that the change inspired her to run for local office in 2021.
Alvarez, a Democrat, won her race with both major party nominations in a campaign limited by the COVID-19 pandemic. But voters already knew her. Small towns are like that, especially for the one-time director of events and marketing with the region’s chamber of commerce.
In a 2019 Ted Talk at Bucknell University (Lewisburg’s “Little Ivy”), Alvarez recalled her earliest memories in Trinidad and Tobago and the family’s “idyllic island existence” there. They ate mangoes off the trees in a small village in the island nation’s north, she said, recalling, “My brother climbing to death-defying heights to pass them down to my father who would pass them to my mother who would separate them between the sweet, ripe, and green.”
Meanwhile, Alvarez would sit at her mother’s feet biting into each fruit until she found the perfect one. “I hold onto the memory of sitting barefoot on the front step, sweet sticky mango juice dripping down my arms as the sun dried it,” she said.
Pennsylvania’s mango selection paled in comparison, but the family made it home. Alvarez was active in Girl Scouts, 4-H Clubs, and church, and her father was a one-man “welcoming committee for people of color in the Susquehanna Valley.” Years later he would join a DEI-focused community group called CARE, or Community Alliance for Respect and Equality.
“My mother would not send him to the grocery store by himself,” Alvarez said of her dad. “A simple trip to pick up something she needed to finish dinner would turn into a 45-minute trip to a store that was less than a mile down the street. Why? Because he talked to everybody.”
Alvarez wasn’t the only member of her family to become a citizen, but she waited the longest.
“Very early on when I was eligible to apply for citizenship, I didn't, mostly because it didn't seem like it made much of a difference” she explained. “I could travel freely to wherever I needed to go. I had a passport. I had a green card. I was able to work and live, but I couldn't vote. As the atmosphere around immigration changed, I said ‘Let's go ahead and do this.’”
Alvarez continued: “I know that I've made a difference in my community as a result, and I'm hopeful that there are other people who have the opportunity for citizenship and act on it much sooner. But also, it doesn't stop just with becoming a citizen, but being active and engaged both as a voter and in looking for the opportunity to serve in some capacity.”
It’s a tricky time to be in local government as pandemic-era stimulus funding dries up, municipal budgets tighten, and national politics trickle down.
Alvarez is bullish on Lewisburg’s outlook, noting its diversified “feds, meds, and eds” economy — a reference to the area’s federal prison, hospital, and 4,000-person university.
She hopes the borough keeps its “rustic charm” and insular feel while evolving and looking outward, a hard thing for aging small towns to do.
“I want us thinking about remote work or work flexibility and how we can embrace that in a way that allows us to have an influx of … people who can choose to be anywhere but might choose to be here,” she added.
Following up on the ”Where should I go in Lewisburg?” question, I offer one with a broader scope and perhaps fewer public relations snares: “What makes Lewisburg great?”
Alvarez starts with the highlight reel, citing the borough's Victorian architecture and cozy Main Street. But then she starts to discuss the culture, slowly detailing her connection to it. "What makes Lewisburg great for me," she concludes, "is the people."
BEFORE YOU GO… If you learned something from this article, pay it forward and contribute to Spotlight PA at spotlightpa.org/donate. Spotlight PA is funded by foundations and readers like you who are committed to accountability journalism that gets results.
