Emporia businesses, agencies, organizations and community members came together Saturday at the W.L. White Auditorium for a free public event put together to celebrate what Emporia has to offer.
Celebrate Emporia, sponsored by the Emporia Chamber of Commerce, Emporia Main Street and the City of Emporia was put together to showcase the chamber’s Building Futures campaign. A number of area businesses set up booths to advertise their wares, and agencies including the Emporia Police Department, the Emporia Fire Department, Emporia Main Street and many others had informational booths to show the community what they have to offer.
“We put together this event to show all the good things we have in our community,” said city manager Matt Zimmerman. “With all the negative news about the economy, we want to show that we’ve got steps we’re taking through Building Futures, and we want to show that we’re going to get through this together.”
Building Futures is a program through the Chamber of Commerce that aims to strengthen the community through a series of nine goals.
“This event is a way for us to show that we’re going to improve the community and we’ve got leaders that are doing that,” Zimmerman said.
The event ran from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. and included door prizes, free hot dogs and a variety of family activities. Over 250 people showed up within the first hour, and Zimmerman said that by the end of the event they hoped to see over 1,000.
Jeanine McKenna, president of the Emporia Chamber of Commerce, said the event was organized around each of the nine goals in the Building Futures campaign.
“This is a way to showcase Building Futures and the nine goals to let the community really see what they are working on, what they are doing and how they can be involved as citizens,” McKenna said. “Everything in the news right now is scary, with the economy down, and yes, we’ve got some things happening in our community that are being affected by the economy, but we have a lot of great things going on too, so we thought we’d combine that with a showcase of the goals and celebrate what’s good about Emporia.”