Community Engagement Grows With Morrison County Best Program

LITTLE FALLS (WJON News) -- An area city is looking to find out what businesses are considered the best. The Little Falls Area Chamber of Commerce has launched Morrison County's Best to recognize businesses, non-profits, and leaders who go above and beyond in an effort to serve the community.

Chamber President and CEO Purva Watten says they named the contest Morrison County's Best because the chamber serves the entire county, and Little Falls has some businesses whose primary location might be in another city:

"A lot of the businesses have sales representatives that have Morrison County as part of their territory, or some of them are just wanting to reach out to a wider audience of people or client base then St. Cloud or the Brainerd area, so now they're looking into joining our chamber as well."

Watten says the end goal is retention for businesses and to recognize those who elevate and invest in the community.

"Sometimes what happens is you're not aware of everything that's going on in your community so this is a really good way of getting that word out and to top it all off, like the cherry on top right, is all of the positivitiy that goes with it so this is what this business did, this is what this person from this business did and this is why we think that whoever this winner is should be deserving of this award."

She says they want to encourage people to look within the community to stay with a business they work at or maybe open a new business in the city. Anyone can nominate a business or a person for Morrison County's Best in one of six categories on the chamber's website.

The six categories are:

Small Business (25 or fewer full-time employees)
Large Business (26 or more full-time employees)
Non-Profit (active 501 (c)(3) organization
1 Under 40 (Under age of 40 as of December 31 of the award year)
Hospitality Association
Volunteer (active volunteer at chamber or other community events.

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