Chamber Corner: Fall Fest, Walnut Days Re-Cap and the Future of Pass it Along

Where has the summer gone? School supplies are now available at the front of the stores and I saw on my e-mail that school registration is next week. It always flies by, but this summer seems to be going extremely fast.

With that said, a new school year means fall is approaching and plans are underway for the 2nd Annual Fall Fest on Main hosted by the Walnut Chamber of Commerce. I'm extremely excited about this year. With one year under our belts we learned some things last year that will make this year even better and we have some new things for 2017 that I think everyone will enjoy. A lot of things are already in place for this year but I know we will be seeking volunteers for that day, which is Saturday, October 7th. Last year we had over 100 volunteers help out. Wow. It was a great showing by the community and I expect nothing less this year.

We have a Chamber meeting on Tuesday at 7 p.m. at Konz. We moved it back one week due to a meeting at BVN school and the Celebration Committee meeting to re-cap Walnut Days. Speaking of Walnut Days, it was another successful year and it was awesome seeing all the new volunteers step up to keep some traditions going and to bring new ideas to the weekend. The fireworks, as usual, were a great capper to the weekend. Thank you, Kendall, for never disappointing.

As you all probably know, The Pass It Along Store is closed. Lee and Kirsten Johnston put in a ton of volunteer work over the past four years to make the store an amazing asset to the community. Your donations and patronage of the store brought in almost $80,000 in those four years that was distributed throughout the community for different casuses and scholarships. Kirsten still has a desire to see the store open, but cannot take on the leadership role at this point. I believe we have the volunteers to make the store continue to happen but we need someone (or some group) to step up in a leadership role to manage the store. If this is something you may be interested contact me at 815-866-9352 and I'll direct you to the right people to talk to.

As I close this week, don't forget to shop Walnut. I know I say it a lot but I can't stress it enough. Get your gas in town, eat at our local restaurants, use local contractors for your remodeling projects. These small business owners work hard everyday and you can't beat local customer service.

Have a great week.