The Washington Chamber of Commerce was one of several organizations affected by the COVID-19 pandemic that received a 2020 relief grant from the Washington County Riverboat Foundation.

The Chamber received $13,000 to help make up for lost revenue due to events that were modified this year. Chamber Executive Director Michelle Redlinger describes the unique nature of the organization, “Two-thirds of our revenue will come from the events we traditionally have in the community and we all know that our events were very different in 2020. And I’m super excited to say that we didn’t cancel a single event, but we did have to modify quite a few and they looked pretty different but we lost a significant amount of revenue in our inability to hold events, which are typically free for the community but they do fundraise for our organization.”

Redlinger mentions that the Chamber saw a 127% revenue loss in their fiscal year 2020 budget, so while the grant didn’t cover all of their losses she says it was very helpful. Since the non-profit is membership based, Redlinger says they were unable to apply to many government relief programs this year.