Grant County still has some small business grants available http://www.grantedc.com/grants/ for any small business or non profit that has experienced losses this year. Please note that they are focusing on the businesses first and then they will do the non profits.

When we use our listserv to email out to you, we do not always get your reply, so please make sure the email address you are replying to is information@moseslake.com or director@moseslake.com . If it shows an address like resp-4fY…..@moseslakechamber.chambermaster.com, it will not get to us. We have identified this problem and are working on a fix, but until then please double check that it is one of our “normal” looking emails that your reply is addressed to. You can cc our real email addresses to the reply, or email us directly and reference the topic your are replying to. Thanks so much for working with us as we get through this tech issue. We do not want to miss anyone that wants to be a sponsor or attend a virtual event.

We would like to introduce this new program the chamber will be offering to our community. Chamber Bucks are a voucher system to be used within our community. Businesses can elect to accept chamber bucks and all participating businesses will be listed on the back of the vouchers. On this initial run of using these vouchers, we have approximately $14,000 that will be purchased and used in our community….keeping our money local! If everyone is happy with the program, we will look to offer it ongoing and make these “chamber bucks” available for online purchase as well.

How the program works – Businesses will accept the vouchers as if they are normal tender. Vouchers will be in low dollar increments and they will have no cash value, so no change will be given back to the customers when using the voucher. Vouchers will later be redeemed with the chamber on a monthly basis (if a business needs other arrangements we can discuss). Vouchers can be mailed to the chamber and the chamber will turn around and mail you a check for the face value of these vouchers. This is being made possible by a chamber member sponsoring the underwriting of this program for this first period (Thank you Michael’s on the Lake). If this program continues beyond this initial one, we will have to discuss with all participants a processing fee. These vouchers will be valid for two years. If you are not able to accept them for this period, we can list next to your name that you are only accepting them thru _______. In talking to several merchants with POS systems, it sounds like you would charge the dollar amount of the vouchers to a “house charge account” and then bill the chamber for the amount monthly.

Now we ask for any chamber member that wants to be a participating merchant to please email deb@moseslake.com and let us know if you are in! Time is short on launching this program so we need to know you are participating by Nov. 2. Vouchers will be going out around mid-November.

The 79th Annual Meeting took place virtual this year with no big room full of beautiful tables and served with a wonderful dinner, although we are still excited to welcome our new Chairman Jennifer Rosin, Northwest Farm Credit along with the 2020/2021 Board of

Director to the Chamber. Congratulations to the President's Award Caralyn Bess with the Columbia Basin Herald and the Ambassador of the Year Michelle Krogh with Hagadone Directories-The Black Book. This year's People's Choice award is Movement Mortgage for 1st place and 2nd place Columbia Basin Herald. Thank you James Shank with Edward Jones Investments, Windermere, A-L Compressed Gases, Salon Envy, Arrowhead Roofing, Boys & Girls Club of Columbia Basin, Basalt, and Grant County Title for participating.