The Flint Hills Regional Council’s business-confidence survey went live last Friday and so far, 59 businesses have responded.
The council’s recovery and resiliency planner Marissa Jones-Flaget says that while it’s early on in the process, they have gained some takeaways from the results.
“A bulk of our respondents actually expressed interest in marketing and social media marketing training. We’ve been working with our small business partners to see what type of training is available,” she said.
As a result, the council plans to begin pushing out training resources through its own social media channels. Jones-Flaget says they’ve also found that about 57 percent of respondents are women-owned businesses.
“There are some funding sources that just came out for that, so we’re going to start pushing that out as well,” she said.
The survey will close Feb. 5 and the final results will be presented at the Feb. 11 Manhattan Area Recovery Task Force meeting.
Those wanting to participate can find the survey at FlintHillsRegion.org.
In terms of downtown activities returning, Downtown Manhattan, Inc. Executive Director Gina Scroggs says she’s looking forward to that possibility once the seasons change and temperatures begin to warm up.
One activity she is particularly hoping to put on this year is the Taste of Downtown, which involves sampling products from local restaurants.
“That’s a sellout event of 400 tickets. We hope to be able to move that out in to the street. Instead of having the ticket holder come into the restaurant, we hope to utilize the platforms,’ Scroggs said.
She says she is also looking forward to the return of Third Thursdays, which take place on the third Thursday of each month from May through September.
“We hope to be able to return to that with artists and entertainers and all kinds of really neat art and live and interactive things going on in the street,” she said.
Scroggs says she believes events like these can be done in a safe manner. Downtown Manhattan is also looking to host the Pink Up the Pace 5k and 1 mile honor walk in April to raise money for breast-cancer research.
