Lewis County’s ability to come together in times of crisis has remained a running theme throughout the COVID-19 pandemic.
Now, they’re doing so even when they can’t.
The home page of Lewis County Together, or lewiscountytogether.com, which was presented to the Board of County Commissioners on Tuesday, aims to accomplish the goal of “keeping us together while we’re apart.”
The site offers a guide to local businesses that continue to offer services, resources for those impacted by COVID-19, as well as local job opportunities.
According to Southwest Washington Fair Manager Tamara Hayes, who was involved in the creation of the website, the main goal is to show residents how they can assist the county’s economy during unprecedented circumstances.
“It’s pretty straightforward in its information,” Hayes said during the meeting. “It has all of the businesses that have submitted to us at this time and more businesses will be added as we get them.”
She said there will eventually be a link on the website that allows businesses to upload their information to be included on the site’s businesses tab.
Additionally, Commissioner Edna Fund added that access to job boards will be available for anyone looking for work in the county.
“The Lewis County WorkSource can (tell you) what jobs are available in this area, you put in your zip code and you find out what jobs,” Fund said. “So if people are job seekers, at this point and are looking for permanent or temporary jobs, they can go through that part of the website.”
White Pass Scenic Byway Director Mary Kay Nelson also assisted in the creation of the website by utilizing the information she had gathered from local businesses. She mentioned the BOCC was inspired by the Chehalis Community Renaissance Team and the work they did in the downtown Chehalis area to identify open businesses through their website.
Nelson said the commissioners wanted to take that initiative county-wide.
“We modeled it after the program by the Chehalis Renaissance committee,” Nelson said. “It reaches all the way from Packwood to Pe Ell, from Vader to Centralia, east, west, north, south, we tried to get every community's businesses listed, which was quite a task, I may add.”
She said the website gives access to businesses through their websites and Facebook pages, as well as provides their addresses and phone numbers. Nelson encouraged users to contact individual businesses to get a better understanding of their open status.
“Make sure that (businesses aren’t) just open by appointment,” Nelson said. “Open means different things to different people, we really want people to call ahead, check websites, Facebook pages, we hope businesses are updating that information on their websites and Facebook pages, so that people can find that out.”
Fund said each Lewis County Commissioner was paired with a member of the committee that created the Lewis County Together website. She was paired with Larry McGee, Commissioner Bobby Jackson worked with Annalee Tobey and Commissioner Gary Stamper worked with Nelson to help gather information from the respective districts.
Nelson mentioned dividing the effort by districts as being the easiest way to split the effort up amongst the different groups.
“We just took them (the districts) as an area, it was kind of arbitrary,” Nelson said. “Just a way to divide the county into three sections.”
According to Fund, the hope is that fresh eyes come to the site and offer any suggestions for new content.
“We’ve been looking at it (the site) a lot and finding out that we could put this in and we could put that in,” Fund said. “We want to make it so people can put their own information up. They know the correct information.”
County Manager Erik Martin made a point of thanking everyone who worked on the project in Tuesday’s BOCC meeting.
“Obviously, with the change in the way we’ve been doing business, for some people it’s made them busier, for some people it’s freed up some time to do some really amazing projects,” Martin said during the meeting. “I thank everybody for being adaptable and flexible during this time.
“Also, just a big thank you to Larry McGee and all of our partners out in the community who we’ve been working with, it’s been great to see everyone come together in this effort.”
