The Greater Portage Chamber of Commerce had another successful Portage Community and Business Night on Thursday at Woodland Park.
With 11 years and counting, this event continues to be a great opportunity for businesses to showcase themselves to the Portage community. The event offered tons of products, food, and some great entertainment. Community members got the chance to interact with local businesses and meet the people behind them.
Each year, the event seems to improve with the amount of community members present and the new entertainment for guests. Nancy Simpson, an event committee member for the Chamber of Commerce, shared all the details of the new additions to the event this year.
“This year we extended the event to not only downstairs, but upstairs as well. We brought on entertainment, art displayed, and opened the bar,” she said. “This is important to me because I feel that businesses can socialize and network with other businesses.”
Each business was not only looking to network with other businesses and residents, but also inform community members about important topics. Laurie Wehner-Evans, director of community and corporate wellness for Porter Health Care systems finds this event to be a great way to educate the community on heath services.
“We are promoting all of our great service lines at Porter Health," she said. "We have some physicians here who are doing blood pressure and stroke screenings, along with information on our different service lines. We are talking about the benefits of mammograms, colonoscopies, and lung screenings. The interaction with the public as well as the other businesses is why this event is important to us."
Vendors included banks, health and education facilities and specialty products. There was a great representation of all the businesses offered around Portage and the surrounding areas.
1st Source Bank Manager, Jesus Cervera, explained the banks involvement with the event. “We are out here to promote ourselves to the local residents and business owners. We’ve been around for 150 years, and we have a story to tell. We would love to tell that story to every single person that comes through. I would say that the Chamber of Commerce really wants local folks to shop local. This is really a way bridge the gap between the residents and the local businesses,” said Cervera.
One of the most important parts of this event to each of the vendors was reaching the public. Community members walked around eager to learn about their local businesses.
“We saw an advertisement on the website and thought we would check it out. We wanted to see the different businesses and what’s out there. This event is great for the community. It promotes business, gives money back into the community, so it’s a win-win for everyone,” said resident Greg Villaroman.
This event was very crucial to the businesses in Portage. Not only was this event a great chance to meet new customers, but also to update the current ones on new parts of the businesses.
Donna Faitak, supervisor for Women's Diagnostic Center at Community Healthcare, had new information to share with customers, as well as the importance of this event to her. “We have educational promotions here for our women’s care. Today is a great opportunity to educate people on the importance of health care, answer any questions, and let them know about our new grant services to help women pay for their mammograms. Look at the attendance, look at the public coming in, look at all the networking that is possible because of this event. A lot of times we don't know what other services are and it’s a great time to meet them and network,” said Faitak.
All of the vendors were eager to share their companies with everyone in the community and show how many great businesses are at the residents finger tips.
Directors at Purdue North Central-Porter County, Susan Brychell and Leslie Plesac, love to be able to reach the community. “It's really an opportunity to showcase what PNC has to offer and really to be able to talk one-on-one with people in Portage, who might be interested in studying on our campus,” said Plesac.
The atmosphere was buzzing with businesses reaching out to residents of Portage.
With so many different types of vendors, community members were able to see the hard work that goes into these businesses, and what their city has to offer.