Chamber activities support Wesson economy

By Bob Arnold

Mississippi Commissioner of Agriculture and Commerce will speak at Wesson Chamber of Commerce banquet.

Wesson is a growing, expanding affordable marketplace for Copiah County, and Wesson Chamber of Commerce’s (WCC) economic development activities support it by helping to make it a great place to live, raise kids and stay if you don’t want to leave, WCC President Teri Bath says.

Over the past three years since Bath assumed the leadership role in the organization, WCC’s membership has ballooned to 39 from ten, with monthly luncheons at varied venues about town that provide a setting for the discussion of local issues and to hear speakers who share information about topics ranging from budget and accounting practices to fraud protection and getting the most out of smart phone.

The Chamber’s next membership meeting on Monday, February 16, at the American Legion lodge will feature BankPlus security executive Dayle Alsbury.

Other WCC activities include:

• Taco Tuesday launched this past years is a weekly outdoors event when the weather is good where locals can munch on tasty Mexican food made by vendors and connect with folk with products to sell and information to share.  Billed as a farmers’ market for growers on two to 80 acres to sell their produce, it’s also designed as a business incubator where artisans and other small home-based product and service providers can begin to build their businesses into organizations ready for permanent brick and mortar locations.  Wesson Lions Club and Decell Memorial United Methodist Church have also used the event to talk about their work in the community.

  
  

  In its early days, Taco Tuesdays has been regularly accommodating six vendors, including two area farmers who have been selling cabbage broccoli, collards and tomatoes and a vendor with natural health products, says Bath. Vendors pay a $20 fee that helps support WCC, seven percent tax on their sales that WCC collects for the Mississippi Department of Revenue.

• While Taco Tuesdays is about nurturing Wesson business, WCC’s annual banquet, which is April 7 at the Co-Lin Thames Center, honors business and the wider Wesson community with an array of awards:  Business of the Year, Business Person of the Year, Not-for-profit Organization of the Year, Police Officer and Fire Fighter of the Year, Citizen of the Year and Educators of the Year (at Co-Lin and Wesson Attendance Center).  At the event, Grace Foam Solutions, an expanding business, Steel Outdoors, a business in transition with a new chief executive, two other metal fabricators within a five-mile radius of town, Destiny Delights, a home business that moved to a permanent commercial location where it will have a ribbon-cutting ceremony on March 7, as organizations that will be celebrated as part of making Wesson an economic hub, Bath says.

  
  

  Mississippi Agriculture and Commerce Commissioner Andy Gipson will be guest speaker at the WCC April banquet.

• Founders’ Day, on May 2 this year, is a WCC celebration of the Wesson community.  Vendors will be selling food, arts and crafts, fleas and other products.  Sharon Langley’s dancers will perform.  Proud dog owners will proudly show what their pets can do in the second annual Doggie Palooza, with more than the 10 performing in the event last year.  Fireworks will conclude the day.  It all will take place for the second year in and around the municipal park, where both kids and adults can frolic in the safety they didn’t enjoy when celebrants had to dodge Highway 51 traffic.

Bath praises the other WCC Board of Directors for their leadership:  Gerri Lynn Porter, vice president; Nikita Jackson, secretary; Pam Stamps, treasurer; Kristi Carney from Copiah Medical Center, Misti Sandifer from Taylor Legacy and Park Place Concessions, Rosie Twiner from Co-Lin and Stanley Martin from the Wesson Board of Aldermen.