The Dalles Chamber Foundation
The Dalles Chamber Foundation
Back to FinalistsThe Dalles Chamber Foundation
Mission Statement
The Dalles Chamber Foundation is structured to provide support to The Dalles Area Chamber in all matters. From the support of events, and promotion of businesses and community, to helping businesses and providing them with education and workshops. We also are here to support youth and the future workforce with internships and support to our community college.
Name of Public Space
Lewis and Clark Festival Park
City, State
The Dalles, OR
Website
Organization Overview
The Dalles Chamber Foundation’s goal is to improve The Dalles and its surrounding area through local event support and advocacy for community improvement. At the crossroad where business and bureaucracy meet, we are there to facilitate cooperation and provide advocacy. Our members come from diverse fields in business and industry, civic and non-profit organizations, social service agencies, education, government, home-based businesses, and individuals. We function as the resource center for our community, providing knowledge for, among other things, help with event planning, safety guidance, and offering our experience delivering an event from concept to execution.
In addition to supporting businesses, The Dalles Area Chamber of Commerce puts on its own events, such as the Northwest Cherry Festival. The Northwest Cherry Festival brings 20,000 people into our town and is managed and coordinated by our Chamber, by managing entertainment, sponsors, vendors, and local businesses.
The Levitt AMP The Dalles Grant series will support our goal of connecting businesses with community and to provide a platform for our local entertainment industry members. With our experience and background, we feel that the Chamber is ideally positioned with the required knowledge, support and experience to bring together this event series.
Proposal Details
How will your town or city benefit from a Levitt AMP [Your City] Music Series and how will the series reflect the three main goals of Levitt AMP: 1) Amplify community pride and the city’s unique character; 2) enrich lives through the power of free, live Music; 3) illustrate the importance of vibrant public Places?
Located in the Pacific Northwest on the banks of the Columbia River, The Dalles has a rich history of artistic traditions and has been a destination for many cultures for thousands of years.
Before the pandemic, The Dalles Chamber and other service clubs like The Dalles Main Street were building excitement around promotional events including a top 5 finish in the 2020 TV show “Small Business Revolution”. We were becoming a destination for musicians and listeners because of rain-free summers, regional promotion, a variety of music venues, and outdoor recreational activities on the Columbia River, Mt. Hood and the Deschutes River. The close proximity of national forests, desserts, the Pacific Crest Trail, rivers, and mountains make us an overnight destination for kayaking, sailboarding, fishing, rafting, hiking, backpacking, camping, and winter sports.
People are just beginning to return downtown, to spend their evenings enjoying a variety of musical listening opportunities. We see the Levitt AMP free concert series as a way to kick-start our community spirit and bring everyone back together again. With inflation rising, and people cautious about indoor venues, a free outdoor concert series is the thing we need to amplify our community pride and bring a diversity of people back into The Dalles.
The series will be family friendly, and span multiple types of music and musicians. It will illustrate the importance of vibrant places through partnerships with public and private leaders working on marketing and sharing the cultural significance of the community. We also intend to position the concert series in conjunction with existing public exhibits from the National Neon Sign Museum, The Walldogs and the Northwest Mural fest.
Levitt funding will provide free entertainment to a urban area with 16.4% of it’s families living below the federal poverty rate. The annual music series will create jobs, business opportunities and services to be offered before and after the series.
Explain how the Levitt AMP [Your City] Music Series will play a role in enlivening the selected public space and surrounding areas.
The Lewis and Clark Festival Park is in the middle of The Dalles on the bank of the Columbia River, providing a common place with easy access for the entire community. There is free parking within walking distance. This park is also walking distance to many of our affordable food and beverage businesses within our downtown district. The venue has been used for Northwest BBQ competitions; Beer festivals featuring beers of the Columbia River Gorge; the ColorDash Run (over 1000 contestants); Ticketed Concerts; Free Music in the Park concerts; Family Reunions; and Weddings.
The Lewis and Clark Festival Park is a natural gathering location that actually brings people into our downtown which brings greater awareness of our businesses and commerce. The park is not located in a residential area so bringing events to this venue will not create parking complications, noise, or traffic in the immediate neighborhood.
We offer an areal view of The Lewis and Clark Festival Park as our image that demonstrates the uniqueness of our community.