Is it over yet? Richmond Hill Business Community needs neighbourhood support

We’ve all spent the last few months learning new things, whether we’ve wanted to or not. Parents have become teachers, just about everyone I know has taken up bread baking, and we have finally begun to recognize the critical importance of the people who keep food on our store shelves and who care for our loved ones.

This has been a season of education by Youtube (although sadly, I still haven’t mastered moonwalking.)

For the business community it’s been a time of fear and uncertainty. It’s also been a time of triumph for some businesses who were either in the right place at the right time, or who have created the right place and the right time to do something different and important to help their community.

The Richmond Hill Board of Trade recognized very early in the pandemic process that our single goal had to be to help keep our business community afloat. Whether or not a business was a member wasn’t the point. All that mattered was whether we could help.

I’d like to think we have.

We’ve created dozens of webinars that have connected hundreds of businesses with political leaders and subject matter experts who’ve offered the latest information on government programs, business survival strategies and much more.

We built www.ShopLocalRichmondHill.ca, that promotes our local restaurants, and we’ve worked with our Chamber and Board of Trade colleagues across York region to develop a comprehensive supplier guide for personal protective equipment.

We’re also proud to be working closely with the City of Richmond Hill on the Recover Richmond Hill Task Force, which is intended to develop a variety of initiatives offering longer term support for our businesses and the jobs they create.

Richmond Hill, like the rest of the world, still has a long way to go before the threat posed by COVID-19 is under control and we’re back to some kind of normal. In the meantime, please keep shopping local! Whether it’s online, curbside or limited store access, your business neighbours need you now more than ever.

As long as we keep our masks on and keep learning and supporting each other we’ll get through this.

Karen Mortfield is the Executive Director of the Richmond Hill Board of Trade. Visit www.RHBOT.ca for more information