In years past we have traditionally held an awards banquet for our community award recipients in April, and held a Christmas social in December. This year our board decided to combine the two events in an effort to elevate them and better celebrate the accomplishments of our Chamber from the year.
2024 has seen a lot of changes in our community, and lots of new faces to our Chamber. We have welcomed 29 new members this year – 7 more than last year. We’ve celebrated businesses with 10 ribbon cuttings, hosted 18 different networking events – 4 more than last year – and 8 community oriented events – 3 more than last year. Needless to say, we’ve been busy.
Some my most favorite things we’ve done: Speed Networking in February, Portraits & Pints event that gave everyone the opportunity to get a new headshot done, Glow Mini Golf where we partnered with Winterville Parks & Rec, and I always enjoy the Markets we put on, but especially Fright Fest.
We also gave $1000 to a local senior to use for university, and we just recently fed 66 families for Thanksgiving, plus donated over $800 to Winterville Police Department’s Shop with a Cop Program.
There’s been no shortage of things to do, places to go, and people to meet this year. A lot of hard work and running around goes into making all these connections and so much growth happen, but none of it would be possible without the support from our members. I truly enjoy getting to be a part of supporting the Winterville business community, and I can’t wait to see what next year holds.
One of the projects I’ve been working on to launch next year is a new program geared at supporting new entrepreneurs. I’ve had some of you volunteer on the committee to help pull it all together, and because of that I think this program is going in a really exciting direction that will help new business owners launch from a higher platform. I can hardly wait to announce what we’re doing and get this started early next year.
We’re also introducing a new event in January that’s an evolution of the connect & learn series we’ve been doing. The past few years I’ve had our Economic Developer speak in January about the economic outlook in Winterville, and it’s always well attended. In an effort to expand on this event, come this January we’ll be hosting a luncheon called the State of the Community, where we will have a few local experts come talking about the economic outlook of Winterville, our connectivity with the county, and what it all means for your business. This is a free event for our members and is sponsored by Brightspeed for Business.
I want to thank Denny Donaldson specifically who has stepped up and done exactly as he said he would when I met him. Denny told me Brightspeed wants to be keyed in to the local communities they’re serving, and find ways to give back. Sometimes with bigger companies they overlook the importance of smaller towns like ours, or claim to be embedded and not really put forth the effort. Brightspeed has only been a member for a few months and Denny has already showed up both in sponsoring our events or by anticipating the needs of the businesses coming to the area. I really appreciate this, and want to make sure to give him his due.

Thank you to the Chamber Board for helping make this event a success, as well as all those who contributed in some way.
Sue Ellen Brock with The Cotton Barn for the beautiful venue
Marabella for the delicious food
Sweet Porpos for our fantastic dessert
Phoenix Sign Pros for the awards
Amy Lima Photos for photographing the night
Winterville Flower Shop for the flower arrangements
Mark Lasitter for providing the perfect background music
Our members for supporting our Chamber and helping make everything we do possible!

Much love and thanks,

Rebecca Caveness, Executive Director