Tuesday morning, the Estevan Chamber of Commerce continued with a tradition they started back in November of 2018 by gathering businesses together once a month for 'Coffee Talk', a small informational gathering to help grow the business community of the city. This time around, the focus was set on building the non-profit side by helping non-profits and charity to help promote their events to the public.

"We have a lot of events going on in our community and it seems like sometimes even though there's lots happening, you might not know where to look for that information," says Jackie Wall, executive director with the Chamber. "So the business community basically the last Coffee Talk got into the discussion as to how we can work together with not for profit and for profit businesses and really work at promoting all the amazing events that are happening within our community."

Before the meeting, Wall spoke highly of how Estevan already has a strong sense of compassion when it comes to these kinds of events thanks to strong ties between for profit and not for profit organizations, but there's still more to do.

"We've got a lot of representation coming from the non-profits and the business people that are coming, and we are going to take a look at how we can get the word out and let people know that these are happening in our community."

According to Wall, the non-profit organizations have major effects on things in the community from the biggest fundraisers in the city to some of the smallest, and the little ones especially have the chance to make a huge difference in how the city is percieved.

"If you want people to stay in your community and to thrive in your community, you have to have that balance of the for profit and non-profit businesses and those non-profits are so vital to the communities culture, identity, and the growth and the future. People want to live in places where they feel that they can connect, and they can make a difference, and there is a great amount of cultural activity as well."

As well, she explains more on what the for-profit business communtiy does for the public and where the miscommunication seems to lie.

"The non-profits really are a huge impact in our community, not just for events but overall all the service work that happens, the cultural events, just the general care of our community often comes down to the non-profits. Now, the business community is a huge supporter of that through sponsorships, through donations, through attendance, but what we see or what has come forward as a little bit of a disconnect is how are we getting that out to the public, and how are we going to work together in the future to bring that more to the public."

Coffee Talks run near the start of the month at 8am. Next month's topic is set to be 'What makes a busines lose sleep at night?' in our town.