From “Quarantine & Chill” to “Pack the Pantry” these bundles of joy from local producers will help you and your loved ones weather the pandemic. Plus, you get a sweet one of a kind #stthomasproud backpack or dufflebag!
This initiative was put together by Sean Dyck (CEO, St. Thomas Economic Development Corporation) and his teams at the Small Business Enterprise Centre and Railway City Tourism in partnership with the St. Thomas Downtown Development Board and Elgin County Economic Development & Tourism.
Everyone pooled their resources and raised upwards of $20,000 to purchase items from local producers during the pandemic in an effort to provide economic help during this time. Folks can buy one of these packages at www.stthomasproud.com and have Canada Post deliver it right to their house – contact free!
Mustang Products (https://mustangproduct.com/) in St. Thomas built the website along with providing the backpack and dufflebags.
Once the first round of bags are sold, all profits made will be donated to the St. Thomas Elgin Food Bank – The Caring Cupboard. After this project wraps up there is no reason that they can’t keep this going after COVID-19 – as long as people buy all the packages. They are currently at about the half way mark in sales.
A couple companies have purchased these packages for people working on the frontlines. One of those was Element5 Co. who bought four packages and asked the EDC to find deserving community members to gift them to.
Package#1 – Quarantine & Chill
- Las Chicas Del Café
- InfuZed Tz at Coterie Block
- Railway City Brewing Company
- Caps Off Brewing Co.
- Quai du Vin Estate Winery LTD
- Thomson Foods inc.
- Pepper Tree Spice Co. Inc.
Package#2 – Pack the Pantry
- Mitchell’s Soup Company
- Living Alive Granola
- Kosuma Foods – Whole Food Energy Bars
- Clover Pecan Company
- Wildflowers Farm
- Byslate
- St. Thomas Downtown Development Board
- Thomson Foods inc.
- The Storehouse
In addition to this the EDC (https://www.st-thomas.org/) also launched the COVID-19 Business Development Fund in partnership with the St. Thomas Downtown Development Board, Elgin County Economic Development & Tourism and Small Business Enterprise Centre. As of this interview there had been over 70 applicants for that.Sean says the St. Thomas EDC and their partners been having conversations with a lot of companies that are struggling so this is a fun project that can help give back to the local companies. It’s also a moral boost for all the partners and they are hoping it’s a strong one for the community as well.
Stay tuned for more Local Stories! We release one each week on our Facebook video page!
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