CHAMBER CHATTER
Dayton Chamber of Commerce Newsletter
Careful what you wish for! Isn’t that what they always say when you get what you want but still aren’t happy? If you wished for the hot days of summer, they have arrived! I’m not a fan of the hot but enjoy the fresh air and sun while anxiously awaiting the early days of Fall.
Your Dayton Chamber wrapped up Spring with an All Wheels Weekend that kept us spinning our wheels! All of downtown Dayton was festive and full with cars, people, food and craft vendors! I don’t think I’ve seen the streets so alive as I did on Friday night. With the Presentation of Cars and our Drag the Gut promotion, people were everywhere! Music on the courthouse lawn, strawberry shortcake fundraiser, sign ups for different sports, more music in the local businesses, more businesses with their doors wide open and welcoming! And that was just Friday!! Saturday kicked off with a refreshing drizzle of rain followed by outstanding temperatures and an excellent crowd of people and cars. All Wheels ended with a loud bang as the demolition derby took place at the fairgrounds.
We also want to congratulate My Dad’s Place Bar on a successful grand opening weekend! We can never thank enough people for making All Wheels Weekend a destination place for people from around the Country! We hope you’ll help us celebrate our 30th anniversary next year!!
Before All Wheels Weekend happened, we need to go back for a minute to the month of April. The Dayton Development Task Force (DDTF) announced the recipients of almost $50,000 in Façade Grant money. Inland Cellular, Vikki’s Sweet Shoppe, The Weinhard Hotel, 5 th & Willow and My Dad’s Place Bar were all awarded grants to improve and update their buildings. The next round of grant money will be announced in December. And businesses still have the opportunity to find out if they’re eligible to participate in the Main Street Tax Credit Incentive Program. If you would like more information on any of the DDTF and Main Street programs, please stop by the Chamber office and we’ll load you up with tidbits of information for your perusal. Also in April, the Dayton School District took us on a trip down memory lane with the 100 th year celebration of the school!
The end of March, I had the opportunity to travel to Cle Elum for a Washington Festivals and Events Association conference where the main focus was events and how to plan, execute and expand new and current events in our local communities. It also creates an opportunity to mix and mingle and hear about other programs and ideas in our state. In April, I traveled to Oak Harbor for the Washington Main Street programs annual Spring Conference. This is always an exciting opportunity as I gather information from other Main Street programs that provide an abundance of creativity and builds a camaraderie where we can help to form new ideas and expand on others as well as to help guide one another in our main street Adventures. Onwards and upwards to our July summer conference in Colville!
Although the All Wheels Weekend committee begins to plan in January, May is the month designed to focus a little more strategically and nail down the details on what that weekend will look like. But first comes Dayton Days and the Dayton Days parade! This event is such a fun and rewarding event. Especially when it comes to the kids! They kicked off the parade again this year with their decorated bikes and huge grins!
The City of Dayton’s 3rd Street project is well underway! South 3rd should be done before school starts with the exception of Jay and Pearson and an estimation time of November for the rest of the project. Speaking of completing projects, the Port of Columbia County’s Broadband project is knocking at our doors!! Estimated time of arrival is in September. Hopefully you had the opportunity to attend the broadband education event at the fairgrounds the end of March. Emerge Technologies, Pocket iNet and Columbia iConnect are your providers to bring broadband to your homes. You can reach out to the Port for more information.
One more shout out and it goes to Columbia County Public Transportation, thank you for the bus shelters and in case you haven’t heard, you can now ride the bus for FREE! If the opportunity arises, we encourage you to take a minute and look at those businesses. who’ve put a fresh face on their buildings, expanded their business, hired a new employee, changed their hours to be more accommodating, changed owners or simply added a “special” here and there. Shopping local is a great way to simply say thank you, we appreciate you!
