The new year will be busy and fun for Cleveland and Bolivar County
By MARK H. STOWERS
The Bolivar Bullet
2022 is looking promising for the Cleveland/Bolivar County area thanks to the Cleveland Bolivar County Chamber of Commerce. With three big events already on the calendar, 2022 is in good hands in Bolivar County. Laura Bowman, Chamber CEO gave the lowdown on the upcoming year from the Chamber’s view.
The first big event will be a tasty one.
“Restaurant Week is the first event of 2022 when we promote all of our restaurants in Cleveland. It will be at the end of January,” said Bowman. “Chamber member restaurants will have a special dish or special item for that week and if you purchase this special dish, one dollar is donated to a community project. If you purchase that dish, you get to vote where your dollar from that dish goes.”
The event is still being planned at press time and more information will be published soon. The second big event will be a Team Cleveland Easter Egg Hunt on April 9th, two Saturdays before Easter.
The third big event is the most well-known one across the Delta.
“October Fest is the biggest event that the chamber does and its set for October 14th and 15th,” said Bowman. “This the 40th Anniversary and it also serves as a fundraiser – our largest fundraiser.”
Plans are to keep expanding the children’s area so there are more things to do for families attending Octoberfest. Bowman explained the chamber has four task forces to tackle all the aspects of the chamber from a Strategic Plan covering the next five years.
“We have broken up that Strategic Plan into four specific task forces,” she said. “Communication/Marketing and Engagement. The chamber will have a proactive marketing outreach plan of how we’re going to communicate what the chamber does to members of the community.”
The second task force is Economic Development.
“We’re going to fully implement a business retention and expansion program to work with existing industry,” she said. “Then we’ll start working on our business recruitment plan that includes making sure we have available property and buildings and getting funding we need to have industrial products to recruit new businesses.”
The third task force focuses on Entrepreneurship and Business Formation.
“We want to make sure we are supporting our existing businesses with relevant workshops and data and events. We want to explore ways to leverage our music history and creative access for job growth,” she said.
The fourth task force is focused on Community Competitiveness.
“How can we position ourselves as an organization to become more competitive?” she asked. “We study internal metrics for our organization to be successful long term as well. The whole of the chamber is focused on implementing the Strategic Plan.”
The chamber has 35 board members and 340 members currently. There will also be several chamber member events to recruit members. Check out the chamber calendar at clevelandmschamber.com for more information, dates and times.