Advocating for local business was a big part of the last year for Belleville Chamber of Commerce CEO Jill Raycroft.
She said that they worked hard to assist local businesses in a variety of ways through the pandemic in 2021.
“Whether it was through the [inaudible] loan, whether it was through wage subsidies, whether it was through even the rent opportunities that would help them continue. And we’ve seen the end of that and that doesn’t mean that our work has finished there but hopefully we continue to advocate again on behalf of businesses to make sure that health unit requirements and restrictions consider the safety protocols that many businesses have had to adapt to and adopt.”
One of the biggest things they’ve done, she said, is distributing over 15,000 rapid COVID-19 tests to approximately 140 businesses.
Like many others, Raycroft says she and the chamber had to adjust many of their plans in 2021.
The chamber is responsible for hosting a variety of events in the city every year and Raycrof says in 2021 they pivoted nicely.
“We continued to try and offer to what we would normally love to see in July with our Waterfront and Multicultural Festival. We continued with Curbside Culture which was fun. We also generated a series of Busker events, so rather than having all of the entertainment on one weekend we divided that up under a number of weekends throughout the summer Sunday afternoons down in the park. We had a market in the park event in September plus we had our first live concert in over a year on September 19 with the Lions Club with Lions Live.”
She also noted that Belleville was one of five communities selected by the Midway company to host and they capped off the year’s events with the Santa Claus Parade in November.
