A Week of Vibrant Life: Orange City Chamber of Commerce
The Orange City Chamber of Commerce is organized for the purpose of advancing the economic, industrial, professional, cultural and civic welfare of the Orange City area. The Chamber does this through organizing local businesses in their Merchants Association. This group meets monthly to collaborate on seasonal sales, holiday events and marketing, loyalty programs and more.
Additionally the Chamber works together with the city of Orange City and the Orange City Development Corporation to recruit new businesses, housing developers and other community amenities that foster growth.
This week on our Vibrant social media pages, we followed the Mike Hofman and Taylor Reynolds of the Orange City Chamber of Commerce. They showed us a typical week at the Chamber, working with businesses and individuals to encourage positive growth and involvement in the community.
“Our members are unique and the people and families that make them up are as well. We do our best to support them in all they do, with the vision of growing and improving the community we all invest in and call home,” shared Taylor Reynolds, Office Manager of the Orange City Chamber of Commerce.
Note: The images that follow in this post were taken by Mike Hofman and Taylor Reynolds, unless otherwise noted. These images were taken on Instagram and shared by the Chamber staff on the Vibrant Orange City social media accounts.
Our week began at the Chamber office, located in the windmill on Highway 10. The Chamber shares this office with the Orange City Tulip Festival and the location doubles as a visitor’s center. You can read more about the windmill and its history here.
On Tuesday, January 15, we watched as the Chamber helped with the first day of Orange City Tulip Festival ticket sales, helping visitors and the general public buy tickets to the Tulip Festival Night Show and other festival activities. This is the first year that online ticket sales were made available, but the Chamber works to assist those who prefer to buy their tickets in person or on the phone.
The next day we followed Mike Hofman, Executive Director of the Orange City Chamber of Commerce, to the Prairie Winds Event Center as he met with city and industry leaders to help promote Orange City as a great place to live and work.
Mike also took us along as he gave a tour of Orange City’s downtown to a prospective business.
That night, Mike showed us the winter golf league that takes place in Northwestern College‘s state-of-the-art athletic facility, the Juffer Athletic Fieldhouse.
After the fun outing, Mike showed us behind-the-scenes planning with the Orange City Tulip Festival executive committee, working to promote the annual festival that draws thousands of visitors to Orange City.
The next day, we saw a meeting of the Orange City Development Corporation. Together, the city of Orange City, the Orange City Chamber of Commerce and the Orange City Development Corporation work to provide strategic support for economic growth in our community.
Over lunch, the Chamber met with the Orange City Ambassadors at Nederlander’s Grill in Orange City. The Ambassadors promote unity and goodwill among businesses in our community. These volunteers meet monthly and are often found visiting Chamber members during special events, such as ribbon cuttings and ground breakings.
Mike also took us into a entrepreneurship class at Northwestern College, sharing the opportunities available to students in our community.
Image courtesy of Northwestern College’s Business department.
The week ended on Saturday, with Taylor providing a tour to visiting students from Japan, here in Orange City to participate in the Winter English Program at Northwestern College. The students were shown wooden shoe demonstrations at Stadscentrum.
Image courtesy of Sarah Weber for the Sioux County Capital Democrat.
“At the Chamber, we never know what direction we are going to get pulled. Whether it’s meeting with current small business owners about plans for their businesses, prospecting for new businesses, visiting with tourists or working on a community project, each day is different. We get to encounter a wide variety of Orange City citizens,”shared Mike, when reflecting on the week.
Thank you to Mike and Taylor at the Orange City Chamber of Commerce for showing us the effort and involvement of the many individuals and organizations it takes to ensure our community continues to thrive.
