It’s another BEAUTIFUL and BUSY Day in Monroe, Louisiana! What a great time to be in our great city and region. Last week we had multiple events and celebrations. This week is more of the same. You can tell a lot about the direction a city is going by their Young Professionals. With that as our indicator, Monroe’s future is very bright. Our Young Professionals meet the 2nd Tuesday of each month at Flying Tiger Brewery (thank you Rob Brewer). Last week ULM Athletic Director, Scott McDonald, talked all things ULM and ULM Athletics. Scott is a ULM graduate and passionate about our University and Community. Mayor Ellis and his staff joined our Government Advocacy Committee on Wednesday at the Louisiana Catalyst offices on the campus of the Benoit Recreation Center. Wow! More Great things happening in our city. Wednesday our good friend Tim Sherman had a Ribbon Cutting at his new offices for Body Wise Solutions. Body Wise offers much needed services and Tim is a true community champion. Thursday night we were back celebrating Young Professionals making a difference at our Annual Top 20 Under 40 Awards. 60 nominees that are doing amazing things. We followed that with a visit to the Garrett House on South Grand as the Campo Design Team gave everyone a sneak preview of Friday’s Design camps. I can promise you two things. The first is you won’t recognize our Downtown 5 years from now and its revitalization will spur growth down South Grand and Jackson Streets down DeSiard Street and through the Garden District to North Monroe. On last Friday morning, we got a sneak peek at the beautiful new student center “The HUB” on ULM’s campus. What a great new addition to the prettiest campus in the world. This week we are excited to host Dr. Brent Vidrine, Ashley Ellis, and Dr. Don Coker to our Annual Vision on Education lunch on Tuesday – there is still time to grab some tickets. The most critical piece of workforce development is education – Please come here what our educational leaders are saying. We are partnering (Our Small Business Committee) with the city to host the mid-town merchants for a meet and greet. We are working very closely with the city (DJ Fortenberry) to help all businesses in all areas of town. Our Board meets Thursday – we will be making ice cream Sundae’s and looking at all the great work our committees are doing. Our education committee will be reaching out with a new Adopt A School effort as well as finalizing Monroe City School banners. Our Technology Committee is planning a Cyber Security Workshop on October 27th and a late September social media workshop. Our Non-Profit committee just completed a non-profit survey and will be moving forward with plans to help area non-profits. You should have received a Health Survey, please if you have time fill that out. The staff and I start Total Resource calls this week and we are putting together a new version of our “Inside Chamber” Magazine. Finally – two other events to be watching for – we will be hosting along with the WMWO Chamber a regional chamber summit on August 23rd and our new employee Adam Alexander will be hosting a GIANT Career Fair on September 21st. The good news is we are just getting started. Have a great week.
Roy