Fall Fest fast approaching

We are now less than 2 weeks away from our Walnut Fall Festival. The amount of work and investment that has gone into this project should make all of us proud. To me, this is not just another successful Walnut project, but a showing of how a spark of pride and get it done attitude still very much exists. If you pick up one of the very nicely done promotional brochures, you will see on the back, that there are many new names. People are seeing the value of not only being a part of Chamber, but investing in different projects that better and promote our town. I also believe that the new amount of young business operators as well as everyday citizens are making a huge difference. The attitude and opinions of success and making a difference in our community is very rewarding to all. I had another business member approach me this week, that they wanted to make sure they joined next year. Hard to believe, 2017 will be here in less than 100 days. Crazy, where did 2016 go??

So, have you picked up the brochure that is promoting the Fall Festival on main? This very nicely done colorful folder is a creation of Heather White. Heather is a Hugh Miller girl raised here in Walnut area and has gone onto her own very successful promotion design business. These information brochures are around town, pick one up to guide you through the day at Festival.

One of the main reasons for this event, is to kick-off the Walnut 50 / 50 raffle. This year long fund raiser will benefit different organizations and many projects in our town. Our July 4th celebration is rapidly becoming a huge Northern Illinois event. These kind of events cost many thousands of dollars. This fund raiser will be a part of not only sustaining, but growing the weekend celebration. We have plans for the new Community walk / bike path. This is a very good project for all of us here in Walnut. These kind of quality of life offerings make our town even more attractive too young and old. The plan is there, the need is there, this project can help make it happen. Jeff Wallace attended the Chamber with a project for a new sidewalk leading from main street to our beautiful well-kept cemetery. This project will be completed through donations, and many have already offered help. This type of project may be able to help with that as well. Another project that will need help and donations is the planned Reading garden as well as a new roof for our Walnut Library. This Raffle project can help with that as well. This project is not going to be the end all for cost sharing and funding for all good things in Walnut, but can certainly have an impact. I encourage you to visit the booth in the Food and Music area of the Festival to get more information. The committee and organizations involved have done a lot of work to get this off the ground, join in and buy some tickets, take a chance.

One of the many fun events the committee is trying is the Taste of Walnut BBQ contest. This event is being offered to showcase some of the BBQ talents of people in and around Walnut. There have been entry forms in the Leader, as well as Walnut Garden and Greens and the Walnut Chamber web site. There are some pretty nice prizes being gathered as well. Wednesday September 28, has to be the final cut off for the project entry form. We need at least 8 to 10 participants in order to put this event on. Consider you best BBQ recipe, and join in the fun.

That’s it for this week, many good things going on in town. Janis McDonald is still looking for volunteers to help with the festival. Contact her today, and offer your help, this is a very good project for our town. Have a good week people, shop Walnut whenever you can.