Monmouth Independence Chamber of Commerce Celebrates Community

The Monmouth Independence Chamber of Commerce is not simply a social club for local businesses. It’s a business that, first and foremost, builds healthy communities through business advocacy, training, networking, and partnerships. You’re watching the “Local News Network,” and the following story on the Monmouth Independence Chamber of Commerce is brought to you by Chamber member, SERVPRO Team McGinnis. “Two cities, one community.” As this tagline on their website implies, the Monmouth Independence Chamber helps build businesses that in turn build a strong, healthy community.

I kind of joke, I say it’s like a business club. We support our members and so people pay in to membership fees. We do a lot of advertisements, networking, and we’re getting back into advocacy work, and we also do educational opportunities here in our community. So we work with giving education materials on bond measures and on things that might directly affect our businesses.

Mackenzie Newland maintains an open-door policy for all the Chamber members. Whether you need support as a new business or just want to integrate into the community, Newland has the connections for you.

We share things like events and fundraisers, volunteer opportunities, job opportunities. All these things are in one hub spot instead of having to go and try to find everything in different areas. I do believe that we also are a unified voice for our people in our community. And I’ve worked really hard to be an open-door, where people can come in and talk to me and talk to our team and see what is going on and how we can work together to create a better community.

Monmouth Independence displays their unity at the many events and celebrations that the Chamber coordinates. They include Polk County Women in Business, Morning Greeters, and the Small Business Conference, to name a few. But one celebration in particular is the culmination of all of the Chamber members’ successes throughout the year.

Our most important and biggest event is our Community Awards that happen every year. We just celebrated our 60th year, so it’s insane, I love it. There’s hundreds of people that come together and celebrate the people that make our community what it is, everything from new businesses, to lifetime achievement, which is our highest honor.

Mackenzie walked us through some of the highlights from the Community Awards this past February.

Golden Hop is a newer business in our community that has really just hit the ground running and made a huge impact. They won New Business of the Year, and then this year, they won Business of the Year. And it’s because they’re just so seen, they’re there for our community, and they work with our nonprofits. MINET is amazing. They’ve been around for so many years, and they’re a special network that is just for Monmouth Independence. They are the person that really makes sure that everything is running smoothly and that our community is up-to-speed. And then Brandt’s, they have been around for almost 70 years in our community providing really important services for us, and that is why we choose to celebrate these places because no one is going to think of our trash service as being, you know, someone who we celebrate. But us as a Chamber, we make sure that that place that is so important is always celebrated. Because without Brandt’s, we would have a big problem. Coming together and showing a sense of support for our community and celebrating what we have is vital to continuing to grow. And I don’t believe that it’s something that will ever go away because it is so important for people to be there for one another.

Visit the Monmouth Independence Chamber’s website to join the community and see its schedule of events. Learn more about this and other stories at MidValleyLocal.news. Thank you for watching this edition of the “Local News Network.” I’m Zach Marqua.