A few weeks ago, our Chamber surveyed 200 of our active volunteer leaders and asked if they believed our business community had a role to play in ensuring our economy remained open. 94 percent responded yes with a 50 percent response rate.
Enter yesterday’s letter from our local healthcare facility calling on leaders of our community.
The Chamber’s primary focus during this time is to keep the economy open and avoid any kind of mandate that will impact you and your business. And since 94 percent of respondents stated there is a role for our business community to play, your Chamber leadership (made up of business leader volunteers) decided this letter was something we needed to support. It also exhibited the Chamber’s own organizational commitment to embrace those requests made of the community that will help avert a mandate.
We want to be clear in stating that the letter is a voluntary call to action, not a mandate. The Chamber’s position is simple yet challenging – it’s up to all of us to do what we individually feel is appropriate.
However, our hospital has issued a call to action for each and every one of us to be leaders in our community to help keep our economy open.
Your Chamber leadership is committed to listening to the facts and to our local healthcare leaders who are stressing that their resources are strained, their workforce is drained, and our ICU is out of capacity.
Our intent here is not to create a panic, but rather to avert government overreach that does none of us any good as business leaders. The last thing we want is for you as a valuable member of our organization to come to us in the middle of a shutdown saying, “you could have done more to keep my doors open.”
We all have a role to play in ensuring our economy remains open. Let’s do our part to make sure that happens. Let’s control what we can, act now and make the small sacrifices so our businesses can continue operating, our schools can remain open and our challenges are overcome.
Marshall Morris
2020-2021 Chairman of the Board
Abilene Chamber of Commerce
First Financial Bank