Ned Koppen, President of the Fairmont Area Chamber of Commerce, displays a new featured business sign that will be at various featured businesses each month.

FAIRMONT — The Fairmont Area Chamber of Commerce has been busy throughout the spring and summer months. Now, the Chamber is getting ready to bring back some of its fall and winter events.

Chamber president Ned Koppen said, “We had our Chamber golf outing in early June. We had more golfers and sponsorships than anytime before since I’ve been with the chamber.”

The proceeds from the outing go toward education efforts that the Chamber puts on.

The Pork Master golf outing, which is a partnership with the Martin County Pork Producers, took place at the end of July. Koppen said that saw good attendance too, with more than 250 golfers and dozens of sponsors.

The Chamber had a booth at the Martin County Fair, which they shared with several other non-profits in the community.

“One of the bigger things we do at the fair is the Blue Ribbon Pork Cook-Off,” Koppen said.

This year, like all others, was a sell-out of all 400 tickets. Five area restaurants/food trucks participated.

Proceeds from the ticket sales fund two $4,200 scholarships from the Chamber and the agri-business committee, which go to two Martin County students pursuing an ag-related education.

Koppen shared a new initiative the Chamber has been working on.

“Our Fairmont Area Life committee a few months ago started promoting our community with a digital ad campaign directed toward the Twin Cities.”

He said it’s promoting Fairmont to people who are looking for a better lifestyle or someone who wants to get out of the metro area and experience the quality of life that can be found here.

Koppen said they’re also working on developing an online version of the Area Career Exploration (ACE) program. It’s been an annual spring event at the high school where about 100 employers are brought in and then sophomores from local high schools come in to learn about careers available in the area.

“The last two years because of Covid we weren’t able to have it,” Koppen explained.

The Chamber will be funding the Junior Achievement program for local students in grades 1-6 and 8th grade in the fall. Junior Achievement offers financial literacy, college and career readiness and entrepreneurship education.

“The chamber fundraises and organizes for Junior Achievement. We have a number of different sponsors throughout the community that help us with fundraising so that we can make it possible,” Koppen said.

Koppen shared that the Chamber Ambassadors have done a lot of ribbon-cutting ceremonies over the spring and summer, whether it’s been for new businesses, redecorated businesses or new management.

“We’ve also participated in the downtown revitalization effort. That’s been interesting, fun and continues to move forward,” Koppen said.

He said there are quite a few people and businesses working on the effort and the Chamber is part of it.

As for what’s to come, Koppen said Bureau 14 is coming back on Sept. 8. The guest speakers for the event will be the principals at Fairmont High School.

Bureau 14 takes place the second Wednesday of the month, September through May.

“We’ve always promoted it as our premier networking event. It’s our largest, most well-attended networking program,” he said.

The Chamber also is working on a push to encourage people to shop local.

A new “featured business effort” started in August. Koppen said they’ll have five featured businesses each month. A shop local yard sign will be put in front of their business and they’ll get a featured business sign.

“In addition to the yard signs, we’ll feature them in our Chamber news vehicles and also highlight them on social media,” said Koppen.

In August, the five featured businesses were The Ranch Family Restaurant, Dairy Queen, Associate Optometry, Interlaken Golf Course and Sovell Jewelry. Five more will be featured in September.

As for the importance of shopping local, Koppen said, “It’s a reminder that we should all think about it. We need to be intentional about it. It’s way too easy to shop online. But if we think about shopping local and all of the great businesses that we have, the services and products, relationships, it’s really important. It makes our community stronger.”