Butts County Chamber recap | News

Last fall, the Chamber of Commerce and the Butts County Development Authority partnered with Jackson High School, Heartland Foothills Charter High School and Southern Crescent Technical College to create a welding program for Butts County. Advanced Tabco and R&B Metals helped sponsor the 100-hour certification class that was offered this summer to 10 local participants. Nine of those students completed the class and obtained their certifications: Luke Andrews, Daniel Couey, Gabe Giovannetti, Nikolas Hampton, Julian Owen, Joshua Michael, Kylan Williams, Zach Mayfield and Kristen Berry.

Southern Crescent Technical College will be offering a dual enrollment welding class at Jackson High School for the 2022-23 school year.

We are proud of this welding program to help develop the workforce for Butts County.

On Aug. 5 and 6, Jackson True Value located at 124 N. Mulberry St., held its Customer Appreciation Days. Staff greeted customers and served a grilled hotdog lunch for those in attendance. True Value is your neighborhood hardware store with expert advice, tools, equipment and the products to get your job done.

On Aug. 5, Gold Lion Farm Bath and Body Care located at 10 N. Mulberry St. celebrated its second anniversary. Owners Cameron and Hannah Thompson have a variety of handmade soap and body care products that smell great. They use flowers, fruits and vegetables from their own organic garden for their products. They have also embraced the enthusiasm of our “Stranger Things” tourists who are visiting Jackson every day. In addition to having soap and body care products, they have a lot of cool “Stranger Things” merchandise including t-shirts, stickers, mugs and much more.

On Aug. 6, the Chamber of Commerce and city of Jackson sponsored the 3rd Street Farmer’s Market. The market is held on the first Saturday of each month from June — October 2022. This was the third day for the market. With each day the market is held, the vendors and those attending the market keep increasing. The 3rd Street Farmers Market allows vendors to showcase their homegrown produce and homemade items.

On Saturday, Aug. 6, the Chamber of Commerce held its 2nd Annual Butts Aglow festival. The festival included live performance from the band, Contagious, and numerous delicious food trucks as well as arts and crafts vendors and carnival rides and games. Because of inclement weather that came before all of the hot air balloons were inflated, some attendees were fortunate enough to get a ride in hot air balloon pilot, Peter Griswold’s Turtle Balloon. Butts Aglow is a fundraiser for the Butts County Chamber of Commerce which allows the Chamber to provide scholarships for Butts County students, the Fall Festival, Leadership Butts County, marketing and tourism for the community, and much more.

Thank you to Rivers Ranch for co-hosting Butts Aglow, and thank you to our Butts Aglow sponsors: May & Carter Oil Company, United Bank, GleamPro, Westbury Center of Jackson, Wellstar-Sylvan Grove, Harold’s Propane, Rental Solutions, and AWI Trucking, Inc.

On Monday, Aug. 8, Leadership Butts 2022-2023 had its first class. This year’s class includes the following: Melissa Cole from Ameris Bank, Morgan Morris from the Chamber of Commerce, Lyndsay Theado and Alison Buckner from Buckner’s Restaurant, Mark Ware from Butts County Fire Department, Megan Kinsey from Butts County Magistrate Court, Adam McDaniel from Central Georgia EMC, Holly Bailey and Sylvia Redic from the city of Jackson, Madelyn Carroll and Sarah Gregory from Dauset Trails Nature Center, Melissa Griffin from Butts County Development Authority, Robert Simoneaux from Edward Jones Investments, Deidra Boan from the Georgia Department of Corrections, Tiffany Sisk from GleamPro, Jonanna Lawrence from Haisten and Johnston, PC, Daniel Conway from Liberty Roofing Group, Joe Hardin from the Dumpster Company, Sabrina Watson from Metro South Association of Realtors, Amanda Rivers from the Rivers Ranch, Amy Fletcher from Smith, Welch, Webb & White, Rubin Beck from the Carmichael House, To nya Gentle from The Gentle Group, Nadia Graveran from Tim Broyles State Farm, Trevor Hutchins from Trucks, Inc., Kaleb Holton from United Bank, Regina Morgan and Kristie Stodghill-Head from Wellstar Sylvan Grove, and April Freeman from Butts County Sheriff’s Office, and Lynn Garrison with Southern Hospitality Underwriters.

Prior to beginning another year of leadership class, the Chamber of Commerce understood the need for the class curriculum to be updated to reflect current trends and needs for the community. Central Georgia EMC and Georgia Power provided funds to help update these materials and facilitation of the new curriculum. The Chamber partnered with the Fanning Institute of the University of Georgia to update the curriculum and facilitate the 2022-23 program. Elizabeth Lutz, Public Service Faculty, with the Fanning Institute for Leadership Development, was the instructor for the first class. She provided a student assessment and delivered a lesson on Understanding Leadership.

Following the morning session, a delicious Zaxby’s lunch was sponsored by Lucy Lu’s Coffee Café and Buddy Blu’s Cool Licks. After lunch, the group was given a tour of the Butts County Sheriff’s Office and Jail by Sheriff Gary Long.

Leadership Butts 2022-23 meets again on Monday, Sept. 12.

“Stranger Things” Season 4 was released beginning in May of this year and has brought 1.15 billion hours viewed since then. The Jackson square and surrounding businesses have been greeting the film fans in search of “Hawkins.” We have been tracking the many visitors who have come to the courthouse this summer. Visitors have been coming from all over the United States, including California, Arizona, Texas, Oklahoma, Michigan, Ohio, Nevada, Illinois, Massachusetts, Florida, Alabama, Tennessee, and several countries including Canada , Denmark, Poland and Germany. The Chamber of Commerce has been posting pictures of some of those visitors on their Facebook page — https://www.facebook.com/ButtsChamber .

According to the Georgia Department of Economic Development, movie and TV productions brought $4 billion in direct spending from 366 productions in 2021 to Georgia. Spending highlights included:

♦ Car rentals, transportation, and airfare: over $3 million

♦ Cast, crew, and extras: over $127 million

♦ Wardrobe, hair, and makeup: over $800,000

♦ Hotel nights: 15,603 days, over $1.9 million

Postproduction and film release bring even more dollars to locations where “Stranger Things” and other movies and television shows are filmed. Visitors to Jackson want to see the various places around town where filming of “Downtown Hawkins” took place and they bring their dollars with Several businesses have gotten onboard and are providing “Stranger Things” menu items and/or merchandise including Lucy Lu’s Coffee Café, Buddy Blu’s Cool Licks, Gold Lion, Roots Outdoors, and The Brickery. It’s exciting to meet these visitors, many of them who come in Stranger Things attire, and see them leaving the square with a shopping bag in hand from a food or souvenir purchase.

The Butts County Fall Festival is scheduled for Oct. 22. We are accepting vendor applications online at www.buttschamber.com