Sioux Lookout Chamber of Commerce planning busy spring

Mike Lawrence - Staff Writer

Things are heating up at the Sioux Lookout Chamber of Commerce (SLCC). Christine Hoey is the Past President and Treasurer for the SLCC and as she notes, there are several events and contests the Chamber has coming up that the public should be aware of.
First up is a Spring Photo Contest. As Hoey explains, “Basically, we are running it for the whole month of May. It’s the same idea as the Winter Photo Contest. We want people, starting in May, to take photos of the area… recreation, animals, doing things with families… that kind of stuff. The contest runs until May 27, and the prizes are sponsored by the Chamber of Commerce.” Hoey went on to add, “The pictures have to be taken with a camera, not cell phones, as we like to use the photos for future promotion and cell phone pictures don’t really work. Winning photos will be used in future publications promoting Sioux lookout.”
Next up is the return of a perennial favorite, with the season’s first Farmers’ Market of 2022. 
Hoey shared, “This is our first Farmers’ Market of the year, and it will be held outside at the Travel Information Centre, Friday, May 27. Right now, we already have 12 of our regular vendors signed up. There will still be safety precautions, but things have opened up quite a bit now. We will be able to park at the Sunset Inn and Suites, and the vendors will be set up and ready to go by 10 a.m. It’ll run until 2 p.m.”
During the Farmers’ Market the Chamber is also going to be hosting a Summer Student Job Fair.
Hoey says the idea arose form many area businesses struggling to find employees for the summer season, explaining, “I’ve been getting emails pretty much every day from our members asking for help advertising for jobs. So, we are going to be accepting job postings from our members that we will advertise at that market, since everyone is looking for seasonal staff. What we thought we would do is set up a booth at the market which the Chamber will run. Our members are welcome to bring us any summer student job postings that they have, or any seasonal work, so we can try to help them get positions filled. Obviously, we thought if there are people new to the area, it’s good coverage because the market gets a lot of walk-in traffic. If we can reach a lot of the people that are there, maybe we can help some of those businesses that are struggling to hire for the summer. Any people looking for staff can send me their job postings and I will advertise for them at the market. That’s at no cost to our members. If a non-member business wants to post an ad, they can just give me a call at the Chamber office if they are not a member and they would like to discuss it.”
Finally, there is yet another spring tradition, the clean-up of area roadways and public spaces.
“We are doing a clean-up campaign called Take Pride Community Wide (TPCW),” notes Hoey. “We were approached by the town to see if we’d take on this campaign again. Due to the late spring, we decided to run it May 15 to May 31, so basically a two-week period. We are going to do the same as last year. People can do their garbage collection, bring the bags to the outside of the Travel Information Centre, take a picture of themselves with their bags and the number of the bags they have collected, then email it to the Chamber email. We will then contact the town to take the bags to the dump.”
Hoey continued, “We are doing prizes, so First Place gets a $500 Fresh Market gift card and a $50 Chicken Chef pizza party.  Second Place gets $250 Fresh Market gift card and a $50 Forest Inn dinner. This event is being sponsored by the Chamber, the Forest Inn Bar and Grill, and Chicken Chef. The Chamber is buying the gift cards from Fresh Market, while Chicken Chef and Forest Inn are donating the pizza party and the dinner.”
To participate in the TPCW campaign, just stop by the Travel Information Centre (TIC) and pick up the supplied kits, which include garbage collection bags, gloves and rules for the event.  As Hoey notes, due to the TIC being closed evenings and weekends, the collection kits are going to be left outside at the TIC for ease of pick-up.
“People can pick those up any time of day or evening.” Hoey added, continuing, “Once we get the email (showing the photo of the bags collected along with who collected them), we will add them into the list of people taking part in the contest.”

For more information on any of these events or contests, Hoey encourages the public to reach out to the Sioux Lookout Chamber of Commerce, either by phone at 807-737-1937, or through email at [email protected].