Wow! How time flies! Your Chamber has celebrated 15 years of service in the River Parishes! We celebrated these 15 years of service with a Gala in June, which included some of our local restaurants such as ZoraChristina Catering, Buddy B’s Restaurant, El Paso Mexican Grill – LaPlace, Raising Cane’s Chicken Fingers, Katherine’s Sweet Shoppe & the amazing local talent of Faith Becnel with live band performance.  Needless to say, I am enjoying my position of serving as Member Engagement Coordinator for one year. I am looking forward to continued growth & success in the River Parishes.

I have seen firsthand, the significant growth with recruitment and member benefits. I will continue to provide a personalized level of service to our members.  We had a remarkable year in 2018 with 48 new members at year’s end. And I am pleased to announce that we have met our 2019 expected goal of 50 new members for the year!

We had an amazing Chamber Perks event held on Thursday, August 1, 2019 at Oak Alley Plantation, which was hosted by Hillary Loeber & Penny Scioneaux. The Oak Alley Plantation as we know it, has 28 historic acres & exhibits dedicated to preserving and interpreting its history. Be sure to visit their gift shop (my personal favorite) and the freedom of exploring the beautiful grounds.

My expected goal for 2019 is to work more diligently with the Economic & Development Departments in St. James, St. John & St. Charles Parishes, to provide continuous knowledge of the value of chamber membership.

The Chamber partnered with St. James Parish on Aug. 8 at St. James Parish Hospital in Lutcher. With special thanks to Michelle Octave, St. James Parish CAO, the presentation included a personal testimony from Chamber Member, St. James Parish Hospital.

We are currently working with Corey Faucheux in St. Charles Parish with a tentative date of Sept. 25. We plan on closing out the year with Terri Abadie in St. John Parish sometime in November. We hope these partnership opportunities serves as a resource to members and future members on the relevance and need of their local Chamber.

This week, we held our Fall Recruitment drive at the Chamber office. The membership includes such benefits as ribbon cutting events for members, exclusive invites to networking meetings at discounted pricing, Office Depot discount card, two listings in printed Chamber Directory, 101 new member orientation & limitless advertising for your business.

Be sure to check our calendar at riverregionchamber.org for additional details on what’s upcoming!

Thanks for your continued support of your local Chamber!

Stacey J. Scott is the Membership Engagement Coordinator for the River Region Chamber of Commerce.