Yesterday, Thursday, 2/7, Chamber President Debbi Larson accepted the Only In Seattle grants awarded to Wallingford. She was given a few minutes at the Award Ceremony to thank the Mayor and Office of Economic Development and to talk about what the Wallingford Chamber is planning go do with these grants. The text of her message to the Mayor and OED is below:

“The Wallingford Chamber of Commerce is very excited and grateful to be chosen out of the many organizations who applied for grants this year. The Community of Wallingford thanks you Mr. Mayor and the Office of Economic Development. Wallingford is right in the middle of several strong Chamber Communities: University, Fremont and Ballard. We are striving to work united with other Wallingford organizations to strengthen our community where there are a lot of changes. 

The Wallingford Neighborhood Association, who has put on the Seafair Kiddie Parade and Summer Festival for many years has disbanded, so the Wallingford Chamber of Commerce will join together with the Wallingford Community Senior Center to put them on this year. 

There are several new retail/housing construction projects continuing in Wallingford that will bring change to the neighborhood, which we are excited about. With all this happening we are happy to have help from these grants to make it possible to bring new structure and strength to our organization. We have started to evaluate where we are, so we can create a plan to move forward in implementing that plan.”

The Wallingford Chamber has been awarded 2 non-monetary grants from Impact Capital and the Office of Economic Development’s “Only in Seattle Initiative”. The first one, is for ‘Consultation for Organizational Capacity Building and District Vision Creation’, and the second one is ‘Consultation Support for BIA Creation, Modification or Basics of BIA’s (Business Improvement Area)’. We are very excited to have help from the city and will start meetings soon together with leaders from other Wallingford organizations since we want to share these grants with the whole community.

Wallingford Chamber of Commerce Membership Meeting

January 17, 2013 8:00AM-9:30AM at Eltana Wood Fired Bagel Cafe

The following Announcements were made at this meeting:

Grant Approval

The Wallingford Chamber has been awarded 2 non­monetary grants from Impact Capital and the Office of Economic Development’s “Only in Seattle Initiative”. “The first one, is for ‘Consultation for Organizational Capacity Building and District Vision Creation’, and the second one is ‘Consultation Support for BIA Creation, Modification or Basics of BIA’s (Business Improvement Area)’. We are very excited to have help from the city and will start meetings soon together with leaders from other Wallingford organizations since we want to share these grants with the whole community.  Thank you to Mark Parker for filling out the applications in a short time to meet the deadline in November so this could happen.

Events this year

Fremont/Wallingford Security Meeting

The Safe Communities program through the Seattle Police Department will address Police oversight and feedback from the public on how the City is dealing with safety and crime issues. Anyone is welcome to attend this monthly meeting hosted by Seattle Bank-next one on Tues January 29^th.

Artwalk

February 6^th will be the first Artwalk of 2013. We don’t have many volunteers for the committee this year but Gino Carter has promised to keep it alive for us and will keep the emails and facebook posts coming. We are in discussion as to what the schedule will be this year. It seems there is more participation in the summer months, so it’s possible that will go back to May-September. We will keep you updated.

Business Expo

March 21^st – We are working together with other Chambers, including Fremont and Queen Anne to make the expo a ‘multi­chamber’ event, so we will rename the event “Cheers to Chambers”.  We are still looking for a venue, as Wine World is unable to host us. Please let us know if you know of a place we can talk to.

Wallingford Kiddie Parade and Summer Festival

July 6^th, 2013 – the Chamber will be co-hosting along with the WCSC and other Wallingford organizations. We have started the process of applying for permits and meetings with the city to change the parade route to start at Interlake going east on 45^th to Bagley and into Meridian Park at the Good Shepherd Center for the festival. We hope to make the parade a combination of the Kiddie parade with new additions. We also want to expand the Summer Festival to a larger event that can become a big attraction to Wallingford to help raise funds for the Community. Please stayed tuned.

Tentative 2013

Wallingford Chamber Schedule of Membership Meetings

Jan 17- Breakfast at Eltana Bagel

Feb 21- Luncheon at WCSC

Mar 21- Cheers event will replace regular meeting

Apr 18- Breakfast at Blue Star

May 16- Lunch at Tutta Bella or other

June 19- Multi-Chamber Picnic at Gasworks

July 16- Tri-Chamber BBQ at University House

Aug 15- Lunch at Ivar’s

Sept 19- Lunch at Chutney’s

Oct 17- Multi-Chamber SIFF event

Nov 21- Auction & Dinner at Ivar’s

Dec 19- Lunch at Tutta Bella