Things are starting to look up for the Peace River & District Chamber of Commerce.
President Shelly Sorensen says they’ve recently been getting a lot of positive feedback from a variety of businesses within the region.
Chamber President Shelly Sorensen. (Photo/LinkedIn)
“We’ve seen lots of new faces this year,” Sorensen told the Trending 55 Newsroom. “We have seven new businesses that came on board this year. All in all, it’s just a breath of fresh air. I’ve also attended a meeting in Edmonton for the provincial chambers of commerce, where I met with a few provincial cabinet members, and brought some issues from our area to them. Their response has been nothing but positive.”
Sorensen says they were shocked to hear about some of the challenges the region faced due to the Carmon Creek project being cancelled.
“We’ve lost about 31 businesses in the area due to Carmon Creek,” she said. “I also mentioned that we have no economic development in the area, and we certainly need some developments in the future. The government said that they had no idea that this was happening, and they were very eager to help us out.”
The chamber also has a variety of events happening in the area, including the annual Passport to the Peace event happening during Christmas.
Sorensen says that so far, it’s their most successful year yet thus far.
“We’ve got 76 participating businesses this year,” she said. “They all come from between Peace River, Grimshaw and Nampa. So, that’s the biggest year we’ve seen yet. Over in Freson Brothers the other night, they were stamping lots of passports, which shows everybody’s excited about it already.”
For every $10 in purchases you make at any participating business, you get one stamp on your passport. Once you reach 30 stamps, you enter your name into a draw no later than December 15, 2017. An early bird draw on November 24, with the winner to receive $500. The main draw goes on December 18, with the Grand Prize being $2,500.
As well, with the 100th Anniversary of the Peace River & District Chamber of Commerce coming up in 2018, Sorensen says there are other activities coming up as well, including the Chamber awards, which will be renamed for this year to the Diamond Awards.
But, more recently, there will be the Annual Holiday Parade that will happen on November 25, 2017 at Downtown Peace River.
– Posted by BET
