On November 1st, the Richland Parish Chamber of Commerce hosted its very first annual meeting at the Rayville Civic Center, where over 300 Northeast Louisiana citizens came to show a sign of support for the goals of future economic prosperity set forth by the Chamber. Those in attendance heard words of hope and progress from both Representative Bubba Chaney and Senator Francis Thompson. The Chamber celebrated several new businesses in Richland Parish, and commended them for their bravery to start ventures from scratch in such an uncertain economic time.
It was the Chamber’s distinct pleasure to award Congressman Ralph Abraham with the title of “Member of the Year”. Dr. Abraham is the first recipient of this award, and we could not imagine a more deserving winner. He has shown this area that anything is possible with hard work and dedication to helping the people who once helped yourself. It is this kind of determination and grit that pushes the new Chamber to meet the many goals we created to make Richland Parish a better place to live in and do business.
We would like to give our sincerest thanks to the people of Northeast Louisiana for being so supportive of this venture that will hopefully, one day, after much hard work, bring thousands of new jobs to Richland Parish and the surrounding areas. All of you are the reason that the new Chamber has enjoyed a noteworthy success in a relatively short amount of time.
It may take a long time to meet all of our long term goals, but look at what we have accomplished in just over a year. You may ask, what have we accomplished? Well, if you had the time to discuss, we can and will demonstrate many small victories that the Chamber has won. However, if you do not count anything else that that the Chamber has done in the past year, we at least brought 300 people together in a room to talk about our future and the need for real change. That alone, is something to make us proud and optimistic for the bright future of Richland Parish.
If you are interested in becoming a member of the Richland Parish Chamber of Commerce, please email us at richlandparishchamber@gmail.com. Also check out our Facebook page and give us a like! We greatly appreciate your support.
Scott Franklin is chairman of the Richland Parish Chamber of Commerce.