It has been a busy first six months of 2018 for local chambers of commerce.
In March, the Newton Chamber of Commerce had one of its best Loose Caboose Arts and Crafts Festivals. Then, this past weekend, the Union Chamber of Commerce was successful in its first ever Union Day Festival.
Both events were held during holiday weekends. Newton’s festival occurred over Easter while Union’s was over Father’s Day weekend, which meant they had little competition from other festivals for visitors or vendors.
And for Union, especially, this was a huge success. This makes up for Country Day abruptly ending days before the 41st annual event was set to take place. However, the community came together to have one of its better festivals in just a few months of planning, the majority of which came after Easter.
Chamber director Sherry Harrison said they brought in more than 80 vendors for the Union festival, and she said all of them left unexpectedly surprised by the turnout. The Good Lord was gracious to the city by giving us about as good weather as you can expect for June, especially since it didn’t rain at all during the festival and the temperatures were about average in the low 90s.
This follows on the heels of Newton having the same luck with outstanding springtime weather. something that we have no control over.
I am thrilled by how successful Union was on Saturday. Sure, the crowd may not have rivaled any of the best Country Days on record, but I’m sure it was no worse than the last few years of the festival.
It’s encouraging to see how everyone came together for this cause to help our town be successful. In recent years, our community hasn’t had much to cheer about, as we have lost a number of businesses, including a big tax hit from Marshall Ford leaving a couple of years ago.
It’s been difficult, but we are beginning to see things turn around. We have more activity in downtown Union, as a new restaurant opened about a year ago, and we have a lot of construction happening on the corner of Main and Bank streets near our Union office. It’s exciting to see that.
We hope that we’re building positive momentum for the future of Union and Newton County.
Contact Brent at bmaze@-newtoncountyappeal.com.
