Oak Harbor Chamber Newsletter

March 2023

The Oak Harbor Area Chamber of Commerce has a history of providing quality family friendly events to the community, and one of those events is the Oak Harbor Independence Day Celebration. To help offset the rising costs of this event the Oak Harbor Chamber Foundation will be holding a Reverse Raffle May 13, 2023 at the Ottawa County Fairgrounds. Just $50 gets you in the door, dinner, and a chance to win over $5,000 in cash and prizes, with a top prize of $2,500.00 cash! In addition to the cash prizes, there will be several raffle items, games, and more! We are also looking for raffle items and donations, please contact the chamber at 419-898-0479 or chamber@oakharborohio.net if you are interested in purchasing a ticket or donating to the event. Proceeds from the Raffle benefit the Free Independence Day Celebration on July 3, 2023.

The Oak Harbor Development Group would like to announce our 8^th Annual Mother’s Day Flower Program! The goal is to raise money to fund the 32 flowerpots downtown. For a $50 donation, you can sponsor a flowerpot in honor of your mother/spouse/mother-in-law/daughter/aunt/grandma/whomever you choose! Plaques will display a customized message and/or picture and will be placed in the planter. You can also choose to sponsor a flowerpot as an individual or a business. If you are interested in sponsoring a flowerpot please call 419-898-0479 or stop at the Oak Harbor Area Chamber of Commerce to pick up a form.

With our recent website update, we now have an online job board where members can post job openings!

You can submit job openings online at: https://www.oakharborohio.net/partnership/job-board,

or email us the information we can enter it for you.

The Visitor Center at Magee Marsh has undergone a complete renovation, and they plan to open sometime in April. The bookstore in the recently renovated Magee Marsh Visitor Center is operated by the Friends of Magee Marsh. Sales of nature books,

t-shirts, hats, etc., support projects at Magee Marsh and volunteers are needed.

Do you enjoy nature, wildlife, helping people of all ages and meeting interesting people from around the country and other countries?

Volunteering at our Magee Marsh Visitor Center store in the Magee Marsh Wildlife Area may be a perfect opportunity for you! The Friends of Magee Marsh is looking for volunteers to help in their bookstore. The Friends of Magee Marsh is a non-profit organization that is dedicated to preserving the Magee Marsh Wildlife Area and the Magee Marsh Visitor Center.

There will be an Information Session March 25 at 1 p.m. at the Ida Rupp Library in Port Clinton. This will be an opportunity to learn more about volunteering in the gift shop and to ask questions. There will be refreshments.

Store volunteers are the lifeblood of our fundraising. If you are interested, please, attend our Information Session or contact Mary Warren 419-656-5141 or Sandy Burris 419-625-2696.

Visit their website at: www.friendsofmageemarsh.org.

We have once again partnered with the other Chambers in Ottawa County to produce our Ottawa County Community Guide and Visitors Map. This publication has a shelf life of 2 years and is available to residents, tourists, competitors at the National Matches and more! 10,000 guides and 10,000 maps are distributed each cycle. In addition to the print copies, the guide and map are also digitized and are available online. We have partnered with Jeff Krabill to secure advertisers for the publication, he will be around in the coming months. Advertisers are important as they allow us to continue to produce this wonderful piece. If you would like to advertise or have any questions, please let us know!

Vistra Corp. (NYSE: VST) announced that it has executed a definitive agreement with Energy Harbor Corp., pursuant to which Energy Harbor will merge with and into a newly-formed subsidiary of Vistra. The transaction will combine Energy Harbor’s nuclear and retail businesses with Vistra’s nuclear and retail businesses and Vistra Zero renewables and storage projects under a newly-formed subsidiary holding company, referred to generally as “Vistra Vision.”

This combination creates a leading integrated retail electricity and zero-carbon generation company with the second-largest competitive nuclear fleet in the country, along with a growing renewables and energy storage portfolio. The agreement has been approved by both companies’ boards of directors. Sufficient stockholder approval for the transaction has been committed through support agreements signed by a majority of the Energy Harbor stockholders.



Vistra President and CEO Jim Burke stated, “We are excited to announce this unique combination and the many benefits it brings to our key stakeholders – customers, employees, communities, and shareholders. Vistra has been focused on responsibly transitioning our power generation profile, and though we’ve made significant progress over the past several years, there are few opportunities to grow a reliable and dispatchable zero-carbon generation portfolio at scale this quickly. As our country navigates a massive energy transition to cleaner sources of electricity, nuclear energy provides the unique capability of being both carbon-free and a dependable, always-on source of reliable power. With the enactment of the zero-emission nuclear production tax credit (I.R.C. Sec. 45U), nuclear power generation now has down-side protection against lower power prices, resulting in tremendous upside opportunity compared to other generation with similar attributes.”

The Shores & Islands Ohio Destination Development Grant will support tourism industry and community collaboration, maximize the economic return on public and private investments for travel and tourism destinations in the region, and enhance the quality of life for residents as a result. Ottawa County grant applicants can apply for up to $10,000, however this program is not designed to cover the entire cost of a project - it is a matching grant program. Application proposals are being accepted now and will be due by 12pm on April 20, 2023. For more information, contact Amanda Smith Rasnick, at amanda@shoresandislands.com or call 419.625.2175.  

There are no laws in social media but there are norms that dictate how one should treat others and what sorts of interactions get rewarded with shares. If you want to do well in social media for your business, and you want to see interest in your company and sales increase, there are best practices to follow.

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