Bemidji Chamber Sees Large Turnout at 117th Annual Celebration Gala

The Bemidji Area Chamber of Commerce held its 117th annual gala last Thursday, and this year they had their biggest turnout ever with over 250 people in attendance.

“It’s important to bring our businesses together,” said Bemidji Area Chamber of Commerce Board Chair Brad Olson, “because again, if there’s issues that come up that they want their voices to be heard, sometimes it’s better to have that and with more people to be able to do that versus you going out on your own, and so this is a place to bring everyone together.”

The festivities started with a social hour then moved on to dinner. Chamber members as well as non-members are welcome to attend the galas and hear speeches about what exactly the Chamber does, especially for small businesses.

“We do a lot of things with advocacy here in the community to help make sure that our businesses, if there’s things that they want to bring forward, we’re there to help support them,” explained Olson. “We help bring members together for events like this where they can have networking opportunities. One of our big events that we do is Bemidji Day at the Capitol which will happen in the spring, where we go down to do some lobbying on behalf of the city.”

Guests will also see the Ambassador and Young Professional of the Year Awards presented and listen to the keynote speaker. This year, the Chamber was joined by 11-year NFL veteran and former Minnesota Vikings captain Chad Greenway.

“I’m excited to be up here to speak to the group, and I know there’s a long history of great Chamber of Commerce events, so I’m proud to be a part of one,” said Greenway.

Greenway is also a founder of Gray Duck Spirits and wanted to connect with the Bemidji audience about his own small business owner experiences.

“I mean, I do a lot of speaking now in kind of my post-career, so I really enjoy talking to different types of groups,” he said. “These are really fun because we’re celebrating Bemidji and all the businesses and all this success and all the work they put in. So these are fun events to be at because it’s more celebration and I’m sort of capping off the evening, so it’s fun to be a part of it and just feel to interact with people across the state.”

Although guests did have to buy a ticket, this was a community event, not a fundraiser.

“We don’t really make a lot of money on this event as a Chamber,” added Olson, “We want to make sure that we have an opportunity to bring people together and have that networking opportunity and to help support our community.”

Paula Howard of Joe’s Pest Control was named Chamber Ambassador of the Year and Sarah Ek of Evolve Creative was given the Young Professional of the Year Award.