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East Palestine chamber seeks project volunteers
Nearly 50 people attended the revamped chamber’s second meeting.
EAST PALESTINE — The new East Palestine Area Chamber of Commerce is hard at work encouraging volunteers to get involved with its plans.
“We have a lot of things on the list we’d like to do, but they’ll all take participation,” explained Don Elzer, chamber president. “They’ll take work. We need volunteers and participation. Most of what we’re trying to do at this point won’t take a lot of money, just people. But these are all things we believe can make an impact on our community, and that’s what we want to see, what we’re hoping for.”
Earlier this year, Elzer and his wife, Dianna, who serves as the chamber’s vice president, set their sights on resurrecting the chamber, which has been inactive for several years.
On Monday, the new chamber had its second official meeting at the Masonic Lodge building on North Market Street. Nearly 50 people representing area businesses, organizations and churches attended. The meeting also attracted city officials, church leaders and school district representatives.
Elzer said the chamber is trying to collect contact information, including e-mail addresses, from residents and business owners to keep them informed about chamber activities. He said he never realized the number of businesses that are in the community.
“This is a great little city with so much to offer,” he said. “We’re hoping we can pull everyone together, our businesses and residents and city and school officials, to become united and really bring people, new businesses especially, into East Palestine.”
As the chamber continues its membership drive, the organization is also looking at establishing a monthly street-cleaning effort, sidewalk cleanup, activities geared toward families and the development of a r sum service that would put employers in contact with prospective employees, among other initiatives.
Much of the meeting focused on encouraging individuals and business owners to join volunteer teams that would work on specific projects.
“We have a lot of great ideas,” Elzer said. “These are just a few of them. But we need help. We need people willing to help us get the work done. It’s to everyone’s benefit.”
Since becoming active again this summer, the chamber has completed cleanup projects, established a weekly farmers market and brought the Fourth of July holiday fireworks display back to the city.
“There’s so much we can do,” said Dianna Elzer. “But first we have to get our town up to speed and unified. We need to bring in outside people by getting them to our activities. Then they’ll go away saying what a great place East Palestine is, and they’ll want to come here, set up their business here, live here. Once we’re all together and unified, our goal is to make East Palestine shine.”
The chamber’s next meeting will be at 7 p.m. Aug. 25 at the Masonic Lodge building.
For more information about the chamber or its activities call (330) 426-2128. You may also go to the chamber’s Web site at www.eastpalestinechamber.com for information or to obtain a list of events and activities.