Congratulations to all our honorees and thank you to everyone who attended the 2018 Best of Nisqually Gala. After increasing our capacity, we still sold out and are so grateful for everyone who made this another wonderful annual event! Some of our many award honorees included: Uptown Lounge for Best Restaurant, Best Happy Hour, and Best Cocktail; Alex Diffendaffer for Best Bartender; Ronelle Funk with Allstate for Best Customer Service and Best Insurance Agency; Mr Doug’s for Best Breakfast and Best Waitperson, Dennise; JW Foster for Best elected leader; and many more.
Of all the events the Chamber hosts, the Best of Nisqually Gala is my favorite because we celebrate some of the best businesses, organizations, and people who help make Yelm an awesome place to live, work, and play. I feel unbelievably grateful to honor our many nominees and winners.
With a New Year on the horizon, I can’t help but reflect on the more than 50 events the Chamber planned, hosted, and promoted in 2017. Some of many highlights include celebrating the grand openings for Shine Specialties & Promotions, Easthaven Villa’s Memory Care Facility, Habitat for Humanity ReStore, and Junk Queen Thrift Shop. We’ve reignited our ‘Drive 5:07 Business After Hours’ monthly events to connect businesses and customers thanks to hosts like the Yelm Senior Center, Shine Specialties and Promotions, Today’s Dental Center, and the Nisqually Valley News.
In 2017 we also partnered with experts to host new training classes and workshops at the Yelm Community Center about social media marketing, video production, sales techniques and other important topics. More than 500 business professionals networked together at monthly Chamber forums in the Yelm Community Center, which provided a great event space and first class venue for high-caliber speakers.
As we look forward to 2018, our focus will be on advocating for local businesses as we work together to strengthen the City’s recent economic development efforts under the leadership of Mayor JW Foster and new City Administrator Michael Grayum. We participated in the public meetings held to develop the first economic development plan for the City and are actively involved with the development of the Downtown Corridor Plan. We will fight for water rights, which are crucial to Yelm’s growth and will still be there for relationship building and social events, beginning right away in January with our Leads at Lunch program, monthly Chamber forums, and the ‘Drive 5:07 Business After Hours’ events. Our calendar continues into April when we host the Nisqually Valley Home Show, with headliner Ciscoe Morris! Ooh la la!
Connect with us on Facebook @yelmchamber and stay tuned for upcoming events on the calendar page on our website, www.yelmchamber.com
On behalf of the Chamber, we thank you for supporting local businesses and wish you all the best in 2018!
