A live Facebook broadcast will showcase the Centre County’s small businesses and the products they have for sale – just in time for the holidays.
Helping Happy Valley LIVE will air from 4 p.m. to 10 p.m. Saturday on the Facebook page of the Happy Valley Adventure Bureau. The program will then be rebroadcast on the Facebook pages of the Chamber of Business & Industry of Centre CountyDowntown Bellefonte Inc.Bellefonte Intervalley Area Chamber of CommerceState College Downtown Improvement DistrictPhilipsburg Revitalization Corporation.
The broadcast is part of the Helping Happy Valley initiative to support local small businesses as they deal with the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic.
[Related: Helping Happy Valley: The Most Important ‘Rally in the Valley’ Ever]
“Supporting the county’s local businesses has never been more important than it is right now,” said Fritz Smith, HVAB president and CEO. “The pandemic is threatening the livelihood of many of our small businesses and restaurants. Through product showcases, tours, demonstrations and more, the broadcast seeks to inspire gift giving from Happy Valley’s unique shops, restaurants and farm stores at a time when patronage is most needed.”
Businesses were recruited to participate in the broadcast and the response was so overwhelming that the originally planned five-hour broadcast was expanded to six hours. The HVAB and Helping Happy Valley stakeholders are developing a promotional plan to ensure that the event reaches as broad of an audience as possible, specifically reaching Penn State alumni and those who hold Happy Valley near and dear to their heart. The Penn State Alumni Association is among the stakeholders helping to promote the live broadcast.
Viewers will be able to shop for gifts cards and other showcased products in real time from businesses during the broadcast.
Hello Social Co., a social media marketing agency based in Bellefonte, is working with partners to produce the online event. The agency’s team will back-end produce Helping Happy Valley Live to ensure that it runs smoothly, and provide real-time opportunities for viewers to shop live and engage with the businesses in involved.
Jason Browne and Angela Steco from B94.5 Live will serve as emcees.
“The Helping Happy Valley effort is bringing out the very best in people from near and far that want to support Centre County’s merchants and communities that have been affected by COVID-19,” said Vern Squire, CBICC president and CEO. “The CBICC and all other partners involved in bringing this effort about are proud to be investing in this initiative.”
Smith and Squier said Helping Happy Valley Live is just the start of efforts to support the business community, and is the outcome of a community stakeholder brainstorm session when HHV was first announced.
Harris Township Manager Amy Farkas, who developed the concept for Helping Happy Valley earlier this fall and reached out to community groups with her thoughts, applauded the collective effort to put the concept into action.
“Helping Happy Valley was born out of a desire to bring together stakeholders to help the small businesses that make up the fabric of our community,” Farkas said. “These businesses are owned by our friends and neighbors. Initiatives like the Helping Happy Valley Live event are the first steps to support them.”
In addition to the live product showcase, the Helping Happy Valley website contains a digital holiday shopping catalogue — The Wish Book for Happy Valley — which features local shops and products. The Wish Book will also be promoted to a local and out-of-area audience. A listing of businesses offering gift certificates that can be purchased now and redeemed later is also available on the website.
“The next few months will be particularly challenging,” Smith said. “Helping Happy Valley stakeholders are continuing to develop initiatives of both a non-visitation and visitation nature to do what it can to ensure that our business community and hospitality industry weather the economic crisis resulting from the pandemic.
