Teamwork & Cooperation...It's What We Do Best

No one has to tell you how the world has changed since this year started. We are certainly living in challenging times. But these challenges lead to people evaluating what is important and making decisions to on how to best help their family, friends, neighbors and co-workers. This challenge extends to our local businesses too. Like everyone else, they are looking to help us continue to live our lives the best way possible, often while they are struggling to stay afloat.

Niles Township has four distinct communities each with active Chambers of Commerce: Morton Grove, Niles, Skokie and Lincolnwood. Each of these organizations are composed of businesses small and large along with many local charities, schools, government, faith-based, fraternal and social organizations too. The members of each chamber work to improve the quality of life in each of our respective villages every day, even now as we are all working from home. Right now, the four chambers are working together more closely than ever to help everyone deal with the challenges and restrictions that COVID-19 and "Shelter in Place" have been inflicting on our communities.

You can help support this collective effort in many ways too. If you need something, reach out to one of our local businesses in any of our communities first. When looking for meals, many of our local restaurants are open for take out and delivery. The Niles Chamber created a new Facebook Page where local businesses from all our communities can share special offers at: https://www.facebook.com/groups/227077132009804/ so please check in there regularly.

Morton Grove is listing on their Facebook Page "The Top Three To Try Today" that lists three random restaurants of different cuisines for people to try that day in order to fill their need for meals at: https://www.facebook.com/mgcci.org/.

Skokie has a list of places open for take out and delivery on their website: https://skokiechamber.org/restaurants-offering-carryout-and-delivery/ and Lincolnwood has their list of food providers at: https://www.lincolnwoodchamber.com/.

So what else can you do? Once a day select three businesses of any category and comment on their posts, tag and share them with people you know to share their stories. Write a positive and encouraging Yelp or Google review. Buy a gift certificate for someone else to use now our yourself to use later. What about just sending a local business a note to say thanks. If you do go shopping, try using your debit or credit cards instead of cash. This is a common sense one, just stay home if you're sick and order what you need to be delivered. Be patient, our business owners are under a lot of stress too and are working hard to meet your needs. Getting food delivered? Tip a little more than usual if you can afford it. Help your local business to advertise. Tell all you know about the businesses you support and why they should too.

We need a little teamwork now. Won't you join the team supporting our local community today?

For links to each of your Chambers of Commerce and all their members who can use your patronage and support right now, see the list below, visit often and share with others. There will be more information on each site about where to go for more information on handling the virus:

Morton Grove Chamber of Commerce -https://mgcci.org/

Niles Chamber of Commerce - https://www.nileschamber.com/

Skokie Chamber of Commerce - https://skokiechamber.org/

Lincolnwood Chamber of Commerce - https://www.lincolnwoodchamber.com/

Niles Township Government - https://nilestownshipgov.com/

...and as some of Morton Grove is in Maine Township - https://mainetown.com/