NORTH AUGUSTA – About 40 businesses were part of the North Augusta Chamber of Commerce’s Fall In Love with Local Business Showcase Thursday at the North Augusta Community Center.
“We have not had an expo in this community for five years. COVID did not help,” said Terra Carroll, president/CEO of the North Augusta Chamber of Commerce. “We have many home-based businesses that are a part of our community, and we wanted to make sure they had a way to reach out to the community.”
JR Hancock and Rosi Hancock have a North Augusta business, Budget Blinds of North Augusta, which is part of a nationwide franchise. They had an exhibit of their blinds and a table of their materials there, and their business was a signature sponsor of the event itself. Budget Blinds of North Augusta serves most of the CSRA, including North Augusta, Aiken and Augusta. Their website is budgetblinds.com/northaugusta .
JR Hancock wanted to change a misconception about the budget part of the franchise name.
“When customers see ‘budget’, they think, ‘cheap’. But it means I have style and service for every budget,” Hancock said.
He does have an inexpensive variety of blinds, but he said also has reasonably-priced automated blind products and plantation shades.
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“I want to make people more aware of businesses in North Augusta… Why not take advantage of the businesses where you live?” Hancock said, regarding his sponsorship of the event.
At least one business had a charitable cause it was supporting.
All South Roofing, Siding and Windows, of 514 Georgia Ave., had a free gift basket raffle at their table to raise awareness for breast cancer.
“Kevin Tierney’s, our boss’s, wife Kim is a breast cancer survivor,” said Marie Davenport, office manager for All South Roofing.
She said this is the reason they wanted to have the free basket raffle which had some pink items, the color of Breast Cancer Awareness month.
A cottage bakery, Baker’s Mann Sweet n’ Savory, was also in attendance from the area and had samples of some of their baked goods, including, for example, pieces of homemade pretzels.
Ryan Mann is the co-owner of the business with his wife, Shaundra. They bake soft pretzels, cinnamon rolls, sweet bread, and more. They also have a few gluten-free and vegan options available and are on Instagram @mybakersmann and are on Facebook under the same name.
“This is my first year coming. We just started the business this year, and we just became Chamber members,” Ryan Mann said.
Nikole Marie Boswell and Martina Scott had a table for The Busy Bakers program of the Tri-Development Center of Aiken at the event and had some of their baked goods there. The program offers a variety of baked goods including cookies, muffins, benne seed wafers, cheese straw rounds, candies, breads, cupcakes, assorted seasonal items, and specialty gift baskets.
Scott said The Busy Bakers program is for adults with intellectual disabilities. More information about their program can be found at www.AikenTDC.org.
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Boswell, an individual worker with The Busy Bakers program said, “It’s a good learning experience. You can get out in the community and meet people. You can learn more about the community.”
Randall and Julie Williams of Augusta Gift Baskets, an e-commerce business, had a table at the event as well.
“We are an e-commerce store. We make a lot of gift baskets and boxes,” Randall Williams said.
Julie Williams added, “We have 18 local vendors we partner with. We have local vendors’ items in our baskets.”
Augusta Gift Baskets does welcome gift baskets for real estate agents to give to clients who they have just sold a home to, for example, and they also do delivery.
Many of the business owners said they enjoyed the event and were glad to be able to join with others for the event.
“It’s nice and intimate. It’s a good way for other Chamber members to see what other Chamber members are doing,” JR Hancock said.
Ron Baxley Jr. is a correspondent for The Augusta Press.
