 Hi Longmont, my name is Karen Stallard. I'm the membership director with the Longmont Area Chamber of Commerce. The Longmont Chamber has been working hard to support our local businesses and connect the community during this challenging time because we don't think that being physically distanced means that we can't still socially connect and support one another. So I'd like to tag in Jessica Wanasek, the Chamber Event Director, to tell you a little bit about what we've been up to. Hey everyone, so the Longmont Chamber of Commerce has been hosting daily Facebook Live events Monday through Friday at 4 p.m. over on our Chamber Facebook page. We are featuring a local business or a non-profit while having fun interactive activities, giveaways, and just connecting with our community. We wanted to share the fun with you after the facts, so we are airing all of our episodes from last week with you here now so you can enjoy. And we hope that you see some familiar faces from around Longmont. And remember, if you ever want to see the live thing, just tune into the Chamber Facebook page at 4 p.m. Monday through Friday. Or check out a themed list of businesses over on our Chamber website, www.longmontchamber.org forward slash llama is open. And find a business that you would like to support. Enjoy the show. Hello everybody. Hello, hello, and welcome. Thank you for joining me today. We're just going to give it a second or two and let some people come in and get comfy, comfy, comfy for our next episode of A Thankful Thursday. So come on in. As you come in, say hi to us. Put something in the comments. Let us know you're here. I'm going to give it just another minute or two. Actually another second or two because that would be long. So come in, come in. My name is Jessica Wanasek. I am the event director over at the Longmont Chamber of Commerce. I am super thankful to be here today. Today is Thankful Thursday, so I want to know what is something that you guys are feeling thankful for today and put it in the comments. So as you come in, let me know something that you're feeling thankful for today. If you guys also want to see the list of businesses that the Chamber is highlighting during these daily Facebook live events, you can go over to our website, which is www.longmontchamber.org. Oh my God, I can't even talk today. Org. And its forward slash longmont is open and you'll see a list of businesses in the themed list that we have set up for you guys. So come on in. I see a few little faces out there. Not a lot of comments yet, you guys. I see you but you're not commenting. So let us know something that you are thankful for today on this Thankful Thursday. We are in our second week of doing these Facebook lives. I am loving doing this. I have told I think every guest that I've had on so far today or this week actually that I am a people person and I am missing my people. So this is kind of my way to connect with you guys out there. So hi Karen. I see you. Nice to see you too. I'm thankful for this weather too except today I feel like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz because I feel like the roof of my house is going to go flying. So that is not going to be great but I am not thankful for the wind but I'm thankful for the sun. Today for Thankful Thursday, I have a really exciting special guest who's going to come on and they have been doing a ton of work around Longmont working with local businesses and the community in general. So in just a second or two here I am going to bring on the Executive Director of the Longmont Community Foundation, Mr. Eric Josempa. So I'm going to bring him in here in a second. I want everybody to say hi and comment. Hi Eric. Hey, how are you doing? I'm good other than blowing away out here in Firestone. How are you? I'm doing well too trying to stay still too with the wind blowing and everything Jessica. It's been a little crazy this afternoon. I know it. I wonder if I haven't even watched the weather. I don't even know what day it is. Let alone you know what's happening with the weather. So maybe we have a storm front coming in. I have no clue. I have to check that out. So we're getting a few comments on here. Let's see. Chris McGrath. Hi to see you again, Chris. As thankful for you helping get my Mother's Day gift from a Longmont Chamber business. So yeah, I helped Chris connect with our Monday guest and he was able to get a gift for his wife from Mother's Day. So that's pretty cool. So yeah, check out our list. I know I said it real quick in the introduction and maybe some of you guys that are just coming on haven't seen it yet, but you can check out our lists that we're working with or we're highlighting all these businesses during these Facebook live events at four. You can check that list out over on the Chamber website, which is longmontchamber.org forward slash longmont is open and you can see we have it kind of broken down into different categories. So hi, Nikki. Good to see you. She says she's thankful for all this sunshine as well. All right, Mr. Eric, you guys have been busy. So Longmont Community Foundation. I kind of like to let the audience, you know, some people know about you guys and some people don't. So can you share a little bit about how long has the foundation been, I guess, formed? How long ago have you guys formed that? Yeah. So the foundation has been around for nearly 26 years. So we were formed in 1994 and really was community members coming together and deciding that they wanted to make improvements to the community. And that's really how a community foundation gets started. We're one of 800 community foundations across the country. And specifically, community foundations are formed to provide support or resources to a specific region. So ours happens to be the St. Rain Valley, but we do many more things than that. Really, the three pillars that I like to tell people about is that we monitor or, if you will, supervise the savings account for Longmont, which we call the Live and Give Longmont Fund. And the Live and Give Longmont Fund provides grants to nonprofits each year. And we distribute about $100,000 each year from that fund to the community. We have about 17 volunteers that help us with that and make those decisions as tough as they can be. We usually get many more applicants than we do have resources. So as you can imagine, it's a difficult thing to do, but also fun in the same point because you get to learn a lot about some of the organizations, some of the great work that they're doing. Quickly, the second pillar is that we're here for individuals, families that like to have their own funds underneath our umbrella. And we administer scholarships on top of that. We administer agency funds, agencies that like to have some rainy day money. And then the last pillar, if you will, is that we're here for nonprofits to help them with their activities. We help in the range of coaching them with fundraising and we help them raise money and raise money for initiatives and other things that they have to do in the community. Yeah. I know a lot of, during this time, too, I know a lot of nonprofits have been hit hard. You know, a lot of them, they just solely run on grants and funds and donations from, you know, events and galas and stuff. So it's really great. I've been kind of watching what you guys have been doing. And it's really, I don't know, Longmont, it's a special group of people over there. It's pretty cool. We, at the chamber, a couple, maybe it was a week ago, a week and a half ago, we had one of our, you know, we're doing all of our meetings on Zoom. And we have our strongmont hats that we all posed for. And so we've been kind of proudly sharing what you guys are doing over there. And with that, I know it's kind of leading us right into what you guys are doing. So I'm actually going to pass the baton to you a little bit. I know that you guys are just launching an exciting new fund, I think, this week, right? Yeah, indeed. It actually just came out and was launched this week around giving Tuesday. And that was specifically the strongmont fund. And that is really a partnership with the Advanced Longmont Partners, Economic Partners. And so that includes the Longmont Economic Development Partnership, the Longmont Chamber, the Downtown Development Authority, Latino Chamber, Visit Longmont. I mean, there's many more partners involved in there. Obviously, the City of Longmont is also involved. But we're proud to be the resource for the community to hold the funds to facilitate and convene the granting process. So this is a fund that's going to be specifically geared towards small businesses and helping them as they kind of get through the next steps in reopening. And if you will, it's kind of a bridge for them to figure out what the new normal is going to be. So in part of the strongmont initiative, if you will, is to provide resources, be that, you know, could be consulting, could be other advice and mentorship. But along with that, it's also a granting opportunity. So we'll provide grants up to $10,000 to those small businesses. Right now, we are in the efforts of raising money for that, as well as partnering with the City and others for funds. The application itself will go out around May 18th. And shortly thereafter, we will convene the committee together to make decisions on where those grants will go. So we look at this as a real honor to help facilitate this process. That's very cool. So if I was, do I have to be a business or can I be just somebody in the community that wants to give where and with that, where do I go? Do I just go to your website? Is there like a donate button? Yeah. So people who want to donate to the fund specifically, yeah, I mean, go to longmontfoundation.org. And there is a beautiful green button that says donate. And you look for the strongmont fund and you can donate there, very easy to do. But yeah, I mean, it's just a really neat opportunity for us to really get involved in helping some of those small businesses that we really treasure. And, you know, for me, I think about, you know, the small businesses downtown, those small shops that we just really love. And I'm not just trying to narrow it, obviously the chamber and the business community is all over. But for me specifically, you know, my love is and fondness is for downtown and some of the really neat, cool, unique shops we have throughout the city. And hopefully that this funding will go towards helping some of those small businesses. Yeah, I know, I'm with you too. I love the history of the old buildings and stuff. And there's a ton of history in downtown Longmont. So that's very cool. I just have to share a little comment here. Nikki says she's really proud of the strongmont initiative. Thank you for showing up for small businesses around Longmont. So that's, I think that is a sentiment that is felt far and wide through Longmont, which is awesome. Cool. So that's the strongmont. And then there's also a company and if you guys that are watching are interested in some of the strongmont merchandise, I don't know if you can see that. There is a really, really cool. It's a merchandise, I guess agency that a marketing agency, BP, BP. I knew I would screw that up. BBP dots, I think it's surf BBP.com. You can go and check out the strongmont merchandise they have there. They have some hats and shirts and stuff. So it's pretty cool. So and I've actually seen some of the stickers around town. So it's really pretty cool. Good effort. Good job. Right, right. We're it's cool. Our long monsters are awesome and they're out there doing the hard work too. So that's great. So that's exciting news about the strongmont fund. I know that when you and I were talking that you have something else coming down the pike, right? We do. Yeah. So along with the neighbor to neighbor. So we launched a fund neighbor to neighbor on March 17th, which was really designed to help nonprofits. So we're still we still have funds available to help nonprofits. But one of the things that we were in conversation with with the longmont power was like, how do we share the good news? How do we share the good stories? And we have this great program called sharing the next slide, which is all about giving technology, if you will, network access to low income families. And that's a partnership with longmont power. So like that, we decided to invoke this neighbor for neighbor initiative, which is all about having people give us stories, provide us stories. And we're going to give away five $100 cash prizes for the best stories. So we'll have a committee to review those. And really, it's a pretty simple to get involved. All you have to do is look on our website, or you could go to the neighbor to neighbor Facebook page, our Facebook page for the foundation, you can click on the neighbor to neighbor application, you can enter that way. And like I said, it's a really simple form. So there's three ways to enter. You can write a written story, you could submit an audio recording, you can also submit a video clip. So we're really pretty fond of hearing from people and some of the great news. We know that there's great news out there to be had. And we know that there are some really pretty impactful things that people have done in our community. So the way to celebrate that and share that we think is through this neighbor for a neighbor. Yeah, that's awesome. Now, I know we kind of tied into a little bit of that we call it the feel good Friday. So we're seeing some of those really cool stories of businesses stepping up and maybe producing stuff that they normally wouldn't do for the community in the area. So I love this idea. Now there's a deadline to have everybody's, I guess, stories into you, right? You want to share that? Indeed. May 20th is the deadline. So from now until May 20th, we're listing the stories. So really encourage people to get involved and do that. You know, along the lines, if I may, you mentioned businesses that are kind of stepping outside. We do have a fund called Distillers Care. And it's all to support distilleries such as Dryland and others, Longtucky, who are actually stepped up and did some antibacterial work, if you will, or antiseptic. I'm just trying to think of what the word is. Sanitizer, thank you very much. That's it. Yeah. So they stepped up and produced sanitizer for some of the emergency workers. So that's really cool. Yeah, that's awesome. And we just, you know, between you and I and everybody watching is, we have kind of a fun story that we're hoping to touch base with Longtucky too. So we get it. We, like I said, there's some pretty cool stuff going on out there. And then so the deadline is May 20th for those stories. And then when are you going to announce the winner? Yeah, the winner will be announced by May 27. Then again, it's winners. It's plural. Winners. So there's five of them. So yeah, chances are good. Awesome. And how, how will you announce the winners? Will it be like through social media or? Yeah, so we'll do our social media networks as well as we will do our email, our bulk email to everybody in the world. And then of course on our website too. In the world. I love it. Love it. Love it. Well, very cool. That's some good information. Spring is back here a little bit. There we are. So for those of you guys who are watching, I know there's a lot of information and a lot of websites and things to click on. So at the end of this, I will put up the slides that have a little bit more information so that you can actually read them. And then we're also getting them in the comments below. So we'll make sure to have all the links for the websites to check out in the comments as well. Because I know Thursdays always seem to be a ton of information into this little tiny time frame. So if you get a little overwhelming. Well, very cool. So we, Eric, every day we've been doing kind of a fun giveaway of a prize, something that has been donated. And we're going to do that again today and you're going to help me, okay? Yeah, sure. Do you want to share with everybody what today's prize is going to be? Yeah, it'll be a downtown gift card and $25 gift card. So we, yeah, good luck. Very cool. Very cool. Okay, so for you guys watching, make sure you're commenting so that we know you're here. We, I'm going to throw out a question to you guys that when Eric and I were talking, he gave the answer. And so now I'm going to ask you the question. So here is your quiz. So let me think. Let me think of what I'm going to ask here. Okay, what is the name of the fund that they kicked off this week? What is the name of the fund that the Longmont Community Foundation kicked off this week? And if you know the answer, the first one to get it in the comments is today's winner. So while, while they're thinking about that, Eric, is there, is there anything else that you feel like we didn't quite cover that you want to do? Oh my gosh, you know, at Community Foundations, we do so much. So I probably could go on for about four hours, but I won't. So I'll bore everybody, but, but you're, Jessica, you're so correct as far as remembering all that information, the websites we just threw out there. And yeah, you know, I just want to encourage people to look at our website, longmontfoundation.org, for all the programs and wonderful things that we do. Awesome. Yeah. Okay. So I don't know, Eric, can you see the comments that are coming in? I see one. Yeah, it says neighbor for a neighbor, but that, you know, that's the award contest. I'm not really sure. Yeah. Get into that one. You're close, Kelly, but there was, there was another big one that I even cheated and showed a product that had the, the name on it. Yeah. Yeah. I'm a big, nice little, nice little ball cap there. Little, little plug. They're like, Francis, what the heck is it? I know exactly. Maybe you should put up that, you should put up that picture again, you know, I don't know. Oh, let's see. Oh, Nikki's doing something. Oh, Nikki's thinking. She's thinking. What is that, Nikki? Is that a sharing all kinds of emojis with us? I can't see that right now. I can't figure that one out either. Is that a monkey? Are you calling us a monkey, Nikki? Oh, Kelly, you are so close. Come on, Kelly. So can I add a little bit more detail? So this is kind of fun that helps small businesses in town, and we just launched it this week in cooperation with Advanced Longmont Economic Partners and the City of Longmont. And so maybe that will spur somebody to chime in with the answer. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it ends with aunt. Yeah. Oh, my goodness. Come on. Oh, what else can we say? It's, you know, the people of Longmont are really strong these days. That's right. Can I just select you? No, I'm kidding. Come on, Nikki, we love you too. Oh, my goodness. Okay, hold on. Does that help? What is it? What is it, guys? Come on, you're so close. Well, I don't know what else to say. Oh, my goodness. Kelly, you are one letter off, but I think we're going to give it to you. Oh, Kelly, I love you. Kelly, yeah, typo. Wait, it still says it. Oh, my goodness. Yeah, darn autocorrect. Oh, Kelly. There we go. Yay, Kelly. It was, it was Strongmont is the answer for today's giveaway. So yay, Kelly Mahoney, you are today's winner of a downtown Longmont gift card. I know that was a lot of work, Kelly, but congrats. You did it. So email me. It's jwanasek at longmontchamber.org. I'll also try and put it in the comments as well. So email me, Kelly, and we'll get that gift card over to you. And thanks, Eric, for donating that. That was a lot of fun. Some good belly laughter there. Oh, my goodness. Well, Eric, it's been fun having you on today for our second thankful Thursday. I will share with the audience as soon as we're done here, we'll put up all of the links and stuff. And hopefully we get a flood of people over there that are giving for the Strongmonts fund and also people who are entering that really cool contest that you got going, the Neighbor for Neighbor contest. So thank you so much for being on. Thank you very much. It's been a pleasure. So thank you. Oh, we love it. Anytime you want to come back and we'll just ham it up over here. Try not to blow away today and we'll talk soon, all right. Thanks, Jessica. Thanks. Bye-bye. Oh, my goodness. That was so much fun. You guys, we love our audience. We love that you guys come back every day and have fun with us at 4 p.m. A big thank you to Eric and the whole crew over at the Longmont Community Foundation. Again, do not sign off until I will leave and I will put some information up on the screen. You guys make sure that you are writing those websites down so that you can go share some love with the foundation over there. With that, I am thankful today for all of you, for everybody who tunes in to help share these videos, who likes these videos. I am thankful that I have this job and that I am able to connect with the really cool Longmont community out there and all the amazing businesses who are working your tails off in one way or another right now. From one thankful person to all of you guys, have a great rest of your day. Try not to blow away but get out and enjoy some of the sun. Come back here tomorrow at 4 p.m. We have a really fun, exciting Feel Good Friday that you guys are not going to want to miss. So come back right here on our Chamber Facebook page at 4 p.m. tomorrow. My partner in crime, Karen, our membership director will be having some fun over here with the Feel Good Friday. Again, with that, you guys be well. We love you all. Take care and hang in for some of this information and we'll talk soon. See ya. Bye-bye.