Amanda Jeffery, Free Press
The Drayton Valley Chamber of Commerce is working to entice Draytonians to keep their money circulating locally.
After the success of the Christmas Passports, which saw nearly $100,000 kept in the community, Diane Huska, the event coordinator for the Chamber, says they have decided to run the passport program all year round.
“We had a meeting and decided why not run this thing the whole year because we had such success at Christmas,” she says.
To participate in the Passport Program and be entered to win their prizes, all residents have to do is shop at the businesses that are participating, says Huska. Every time someone makes a purchase at one of those businesses, they will receive a stamp on their passport. The more stamps, the more entries there are for the prizes.
Huska says these prizes will be drawn on Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, Thanksgiving and there will also be the annual Christmas draw.
This time, Huska says they have forty-two local businesses participating, twenty more than they had over the Christmas holidays. She says the Chamber is excited to see how much local spending they can encourage in Drayton.
“It’s a really good variety of retail,” she says. Some of those businesses are Chamber members and some are not.
She says the Chamber is working with the Town of Drayton Valley and Brazeau County, and they’ve really enjoyed the collaboration.
“Everybody wants Drayton going. You know? Keep it positive. Get some happiness back in here,” she says.
Huska says though Covid has had a negative impact on many businesses, in some cases there has been a bit of a silver lining. More people have been shopping in their own community. The hope is that by offering these passports and the prizes, people will continue to shop locally rather than go to Edmonton or other places to shop.
“We thought, they’ve done it this long, over a year, why not try to encourage the public to still spend as much as they can in town? This is just a bit of an incentive,” she says.
Another goal of the program is to stimulate new growth and awareness of some of the businesses. Those that are new to the community might be able to find some stores that they weren’t aware of.
Huska says the Passport Program isn’t the only event the chamber is planning to help boost the economy in Drayton. They will also be hosting town hall meetings that will invite businesses to get together and share tips of how they were able to survive the Covid restrictions. She says this will be in partnership with the Town and the County.
