The Jacksonville Area Chamber of Commerce is working to help bars and restaurants who are struggling during increased COVID mitigation restrictions with a new contest.
The Chamber is now hosting a new drawing called Eat Drink Win, which gives patrons the opportunity to win $100.00 worth of Chamber Checks just by continuing to support their local eating and drinking establishments.
President of the Jacksonville Area Chamber of Commerce, Lisa Musch, says the idea for the contest came from outside the chamber this time: “Bryan Nyburg, our Community Development Director for the city, and Mayor Ezard called me a couple of weeks ago and said hey we’ve got this idea [and] we need a little help with it [and] wonder what your thoughts might be. We wanted to do something to help our local bars and restaurants. We were just finished up our 12 Days of Loving Local/ shopping local with our kind of store promotion in conjunction with Main Street and the Visitors Bureau to help our local retailers. You know to keep people shopping local, so we wanted to try and push that towards bars and restaurants now to see how we could be of benefit to them.”
Musch says the Eat Drink Win contest is pretty easy, and that they worked hard to keep it as simple and yet as supportive as possible. All one needs to do to enter is to visit any bars or restaurants in the area using their carry out, curbside pickup, delivery or drive through options and save the receipt: “If you spend $10 or more at any of our local bars and restaurants anything in the Jacksonville area. You bring in your receipt and drop that off at the Chamber which is at 1155 West Morton right there in Community Park by the Big Eli Wheel, and we’ve got a mail slot on the front of the door in the box, so you can drop your receipt through there. Put your name and number on the back of it. You can also email a copy of your receipt with your name and number to Chamber2@Jacksonvilleareachamber.org. We have our big selection process the December 14th through Friday December 18th and draw our winners.”
Winners will receive $100.00 worth of Chamber Checks that can be spent at a variety of retailers in the Jacksonville area.
Musch says so far the Eat Drink Win promotion has been well received, and local bars and restaurants need all the support they can get at this time: “We’ve had a lot of comments the last couple of days when we rolled this out [like], wow this is great. We want to do something to support our local business, bars, and restaurants, because you know people are still eating and drinking, and it’s a great way to support those local entities. You know we want to make sure everybodys able to make it through this time. It’s been very difficult this second round of mitigation for our local bars and restaurants. You know they’ve tried to get back to a better place for themselves, and you know things were going better, but then this second round of mitigation has been very difficult.”
Musch says the drawing for the checks will be held from Monday December 14th, through Friday December 18th. She says they wanted to make sure the checks were distributed before Christmas, so they could be used for gift buying or giving if need be.
Musch says a big thanks is owed to the sponsors of the event as the Chamber had intended to give out five prizes, however thanks to generous donations, the number of prizes is now up to eight, and could be more before it’s over.
For more information on the Eat Drink Win drawing, go to the Jacksonville Area Chamber of Commerce Facebook Page.