The Greenwood-Leflore County Chamber of Commerce will celebrate the end of a year and the beginning of a new one with its 2022 Chamber Honors Annual Meeting & Taste of Greenwood.
The event will be held Thursday at the Leflore County Civic Center.
The event will feature a business expo, social hour and Taste of Greenwood, which will be followed by an awards presentation and annual meeting.
“The chamber is bigger than itself — it’s the community, and that’s who comes to this,” said Beth Stevens, executive director of the Chamber of Commerce. “It’s the chamber’s chance to recognize everybody out there who has done amazing things in our community for the past year, which in turn makes the chamber successful.”
The annual meeting will kick off the chamber’s 105th year.
The event will feature various Greenwood-area businesses in the expo, and about 19 different restaurants have already signed up for Taste of Greenwood, which will include food samplings from the local participating eateries.
“We’ve got great participation signed up this year,” said Stevens. “We already have about 35 corporate tables and lots of individual tickets sold.”
Festivities will begin at 5:30 p.m. The meeting’s program will start at 6:45 p.m. and will feature an awards presentation to the Small Business of the Year, Big Business of the Year, Ambassador of the Year, Community Pride Award recipient and, new this year, Retailer/Restaurant of the Year.
“We used to have a Retailer of the Year years ago, and we did away with that and turned it into a Small Business of the Year,” said Stevens. “We have a lot of retailers and restaurants that are worthy of the award, plus we have other small businesses that are not retailers or restaurants. So we decided to bring back the retailer/restaurant category and add that back into the mix.”
The meeting will also include the passing of the gavel from last year’s Chamber of Commerce president, Moss Melton, to the incoming president, Tim Stanciel. Because an annual meeting was not held last year due to the pandemic, the 2020 president, Lisa Smith, will start by passing of the gavel to Melton. Each of the two past presidents and the incoming president will give a speech.
Rather than inducting someone into the Leflore County Hall of Fame this year, the chamber will make a special presentation at the end of the meeting called “A Salute to Local Heroes.”
“That’s when we will have representatives of different sectors of the community that we will honor,” said Stevens.
A representative from each of the following categories will be honored: Law enforcement, firefighters, active duty and retired military, educators, utility linemen, nurses, doctors, ambulance and public works.
“These are the people who go above and beyond to help make our lives easier in normal years, and just in the last two years it’s been an extra strain — it’s been an extra strain on everybody — but particularly on these individuals,” said Stevens. “Despite everything that’s going on, they still have to get up and do their jobs every day, and a lot of them are exposed to not only COVID but also other dangers that we just take for granted. We think it’s a fitting time to do this with everything that’s happened in the last two years, and we couldn’t think of a better platform to do it than a gathering like this.”
Tickets are on sale. A corporate table seating eight is $475, an individual ticket is $55 and an expo booth is $130, which includes two tickets.
“I think the quality of this event and the number of people who come out for this is just a testament to the support we get from the community all throughout the year,” said Stevens. “People love the chamber, and they want to support what we’re doing.”
Tickets must be purchased by Wednesday and will not be sold at the door on the day of the event. For more information or to purchase corporate seating, individual tickets or an expo booth, visit greenwoodmschamber.com or call 662-453-4152.
- Contact Ruthie Robison at 581-7235 or rrobison@gwcommonwealth.com.
