The Hobart Chamber of Commerce celebrated its members, the community and all the hard work done and great things accomplished over the last year at the 2016 Awards Dinner held at Ambassador Banquets on Thursday evening.
“Tonight is all about celebrating the accomplishments of our members,” said Lisa Winstead, Executive Director of the Hobart Chamber. “We look at the businesses and the individuals and we always have a nice pool too choose from. It’s a hard decision to make. For the last two years we’ve allowed our members to nominate businesses and individuals. Our committee ultimately goes through all the nominations and chooses the winners based on their involvement and volunteerism. It’s not just based on their involvement with the Chamber either but with their community and the city as a whole.”
“It’s a really tough decision,” Winstead said. “We recognized some really great people and businesses here tonight. This is our 8th Awards Dinner and 2015 was a great year for us so we were really excited to come out and celebrate with all the members who could make it out tonight.”
Click here to see more photos from the Hobart Chamber Awards!
Every year the Hobart Chamber lets the Hobart Mayor choose the recipient of the Mayor’s Choice Award. This year, Mayor Snedecor chose Rhythm Rhyme & Party Time as the winner of the award and he spoke about them and what he considers when making his selection.
“One of the reasons on which I always base my decision is whether or not the business is bringing people into the community,” Snedecor said. “Do they bring a diverse following or a diverse business profile? In this case, Rhythm Rhyme & Party Time is an outreach to our children and our young people, plus they have some adult programs. They’re really noted throughout the region and not just locally.”
“They do a lot with the arts and music and they work to find strengths and the things that are special in the children and then they tap into that resource,” said Snedecor. “It’s amazing how many kids they’ve reached and when they do that we have all this flooding into our downtown. Parents come in and they drop their children at a class and they get something to eat or pick up something downtown. It’s that direct effect and the indirect effect that is important in a Mayor’s Choice Award.”
Echoing both Winstead’s and Mayor Snedecor’s sentiments was Hobart Chamber President-Elect, Chris Perez from Allstate Insurance.
“This was a year was a fantastic year,” . “We’ve had some low turnouts in years past but people definitely came out this year. We’ve had a great year with some new blood in recently and getting involved and a lot of them were displayed here today. I love Hobart and it’s really great to award people who are involved in the community. I’m a community positive guy and I like to support those that are as well. It makes a big difference.”
Winning awards for Longevity were: Dam Duck Race/Hobart Community Foundation - 25th Year, Jim Burns - 40 years as Funeral Director at Burns Funeral Home, Hobart Historical Society - 50 Years, Hobart Carnegie Library - 100 Years, Hobart Lumber - 100 Years.
Also winning awards were: Mayor’s Choice Award - Rhythm Rhyme & Party Time, Non-Profit of the Year Award - Meals on Wheels, Volunteer of the Year Award - Kathy Mangel, Business Person of the Year Award - Rob Moreth, and Business of the Year Award - Chicagoland Popcorn.