County Commissioners - Regular Meeting

tourism grant applications coming before us, commissioners. Just kind of some housekeeping for how this is going to work. You'll come up to the table here. If you need to bring more chairs, if you have more people with you, you're welcome to do that. You'll state your name or names. And then at that point, our chief clerk, Eric Haggerty, will start a clock. You'll have three minutes to kind of just tell us about your application. You don't have to use all three of those minutes. You're welcome to. But we might have questions. And our questions might be the relevant thing that we want to kind of understand about your application. So we leave a couple minutes. after the three minutes for that. We have hundreds of these. So we did it all day yesterday. I think we're doing most of today and parts of tomorrow. So thank you for being as concise as possible. But also we understand this is your passion. This is something you've put a lot of time and energy into and we want to hear about it So I'll go through the names. One thing I didn't do yesterday that I'm going to do today is I'm going to say who's up and who's on deck. That way, whoever's on deck can kind of be getting ready and prepared. With that, we'll get started. Harrisburg Young Professionals, and on deck is Harris Town Development Corporation.

Good morning. good morning and thank you my name is olivia ryanfis and um my name is elisa mancuso and we are board officers of hyp our executive director cody goss cannot be here today he's on his much deserved vacation so i just want to say thank you for your the county's continued interest in promoting um worthwhile opportunities to attract all visitors of all age ranges and types to harrisburg we applied for funding for two important programs that we believe, after many decades of success, continue to be of value to the county. And just a brief moment on HYP. HYP was founded in 1998 by five friends who returned to Harrisburg and saw a gap in community and activities geared toward young people, particularly under the age of 40. They founded this nonprofit and dedicated its mission to making Harrisburg a better place to live, work, and play, while developing and retaining future leaders. After 28 years, we're proud to have an average of 650 active members, 4,500 athletes, 14 sports leagues, and several volunteer-led committees, all designed to showcase our cherished county seat. We thank the board for your continued engagement with our demographic, and as we all strive to attract and retain young people to Dauphin County. Since you're already familiar with our application, I'd like to spend a few minutes speaking to why these initiatives matter beyond their individual outcomes and why your investment in them is an investment in Harrisburg's future. HYP's application reflects our continued missional commitment to Dauphin County, specifically the city of Harrisburg. Our application reflects two of our most successful initiatives year after year. This year, we held our 26th annual Forrester Street cleanup and our 14th rendition. We're in the middle of our 14th rendition of the Italian Lake Concert Series. Each of these make Harrisburg a more vibrant, beautiful, and attractive place to explore. The Italian Lake Concert Series is our most visible tourism catalyst. We bring free, high-quality live music to one of the city's finest public spaces, and there's a performance for every musical taste. We aren't just hosting a concert. We're giving people a reason to come to a hidden gem within Harrisburg and Italian Lake. HYP creates a family-friendly atmosphere, averaging 100 to 200 visitors per concert, and in the case of a Beatles cover band, well over 300, which we loved. And we have partnered with many local vendors and community sponsors to provide free and engaging delights during each two-hour performance. Our guests are encouraged to bring the whole family, and the series has a long-standing fan base and attracts audiences of all ages. HYP's volunteer leaders work diligently to greet guests and ensure they experience Harrisburg not just as a place to pass through, but as a destination worth returning to. The event has improved year over year without driving up costs. Our volunteer-led committee selects a diversity of up and coming talent, mixing original artists, cover bands, and local performing groups into the series. Our goal is simple, to provide a free and accessible connection to the local music scene for the community and its visitors, while joining the effort to make Harrisburg a premier regional destination for live music.

A city worth visiting must also be a city worth living.

We'll give you 30 seconds. Is that all right? Absolutely. If you want to summarize.

Yeah. So in its 26th year, the second event that we wanted to talk about was the first year street cleanup. Organized by our live committee, it's 1 of the 1st things people see when they arrive. And it's crossed by hundreds of residents, visitors and patrons throughout the year. So we.

support with litter removal vegetation clearing and maintaining median planting including rose bushes for this area uh can i ask do you guys get any um support from the city with tourism at all tourism funds for the city no but we do for in the case of forestry cleanup receive generous support from the public works department with free mulch and hands-on assistance throughout the cleanup great any questions

I want to thank HYP for their years of support for the county with the council on various projects and working to beautify this city thank you

yeah we know what makes a thriving city like and even attractive is like i think you said thousands of athletes like you know i think all the um whenever i i was at a concert the other night and then went uh to one of the bars and there was just a ton of athletes and i can do that i was like the moment i saw them i'm like oh hyp had something going on tonight you know what i mean so like you guys are really making a difference because a lot of those people then go out and frequent the you know local establishments and stuff and so thanks for all you do and uh we appreciate your presentation thank you yeah thank you All right, next up we have Harris Town Development Corporation, and then on deck is Hershey Aquatic Club.

Good morning, commissioners. My name is Brad Jones. I'm the president and CEO of Harris Town Development Corporation.

Julie Shade, manager of community development and events for Harris Town.

Hey, Julie. Good morning. We'll keep this brief for you guys. We are producing, in partnership with Sarah Bozich, a blizzard of downtown events to try to attract and retain businesses, small businesses, promote small businesses, and, of course, create community here in the downtown area. Most of those events are either on South 3rd Street in a sum of block parties or festivals down in that area or at our new Cornet Pocket Park. And so we've been partnering with a lot of small businesses for the past 10 years we've been doing this, but we've really expanded it up, you know, up our game to try to really make a difference in, you know, fulfilling our mission, which is really about revitalizing downtown Harrisburg. Jules, I don't know if you want to say anything else.

Sure. All of our events are free to attend. All of them include live music or some kind of musical entertainment. And the food and beverage are pay-as-you-go. The costs that we incur are the musical groups. the Parking is a huge cost to us for every single event in Soma in addition We're also paying for parking in front of Soma or for in front of Coronet Park for our food trucks. So each event is the Soma events is more than $600 per event and and almost $100 for the coronet park events for just a couple of hours after the parking is free so gotcha

So is most of the budget probably going to parking and to talent?

It's a mix of talent, logistics, and then contracting with Sarah Bozich to produce and promote the events.

Very good. Do you get any city tourism support? We're just asking a lot of the city.

No. We did get a little support from Sharon's organization to assist us with, I think, $5,000. We're spending about $50,000, and we're asking for $25,000.

Well, I, for one, I think this is a no-brainer. Cornette Park is a great opportunity for the city, for downtown. The pocket park idea, I think, is a really good idea. And obviously, SOMA's been incredibly successful, those block parties and things that are happening there. And I think it is something that... You know, maybe there's people who come downtown specifically for that, but even more so if you're already downtown for another thing and then you see that, it's just another reason to be like, wow, Harrisburg is, you know, something's going on. Like, you know what I mean? And we just need more of that happening all over the city. So thank you both for your commitment to Harrisburg and to downtown specifically. And we've been cutting a lot of ribbons lately and very proud of that. So I'll hand it over to my colleagues if they have any questions or any comments.

Brett, have you gotten any Harrisburg tourism money over the years?

No.

You'd figure with your partner agency, you'd figure working on a tourism strategy for downtown. Do you know, is there ever a process under any administration to be able to discuss how you access tourism revenues?

Not that I'm aware of.

Because a great way for these kind of events to succeed would be to have some level of partnership and investment that would occur from all of our partners, VHH, the county, the city, and all of us have available resources.

We're happy to explore that further.

I mean, again, have you ever went through a grant process or requested any of those?

I don't believe there is a grant process through the city.

The reason we're asking is because the city also gets $1.2 million a year. Mm-hmm. in these dollars and the county seems to be the piggy bank where everyone comes to us distribute the monies and we're looking for a little partnership with the city because a lot of these a lot of these applicants are city related so that's why i'm not aware of application for from the city

Yeah, I don't think they have an application process.

And, again, I just didn't know under any administration whether or not there was a willingness to partner or to be able to utilize these dollars because, as we talk about downtown, you know, Harris Town is a great partner. These things happen in partnerships, you know, with multiple organizations. It's not one group that carries it alone. And I'm trying to find out where revenue sources exist and how we can –

best leverage those in order to see the kind of investment that's going to be required sort of is the line of thinking and and the approach so fair enough i understood but thank you yeah of course thank you thank you both thank you guys all right next up we have the hershey aquatic club and we have the hershey bears booster club on deck all right i don't see the aquatic club here so we'll go to hershey bears booster club and then hershey e tours on deck Good morning.

Good morning. My name is Kyle Craybill, representative of the Hershey Bears Workshop Club. Hello and good morning. For 60 years, the Association of American Hockey League Booster Clubs have gathered to discuss our love and passion for minor league hockey and remembering past teams, players, and memories. Every September, the week after Labor Day, hundreds of individuals that are represented by 25 to 30 booster clubs of past and present American Hockey League teams get together to discuss our love of the game of ice hockey. Every year, a different booster club within the association takes a turn to host a convention. This year, the Hershey Bears Booster Club is hosting a convention right here in Dauphin County. Booster clubs from Worcester, Massachusetts, Syracuse, New York, Rockford, Illinois, and yes, Coachella Valley, California, along with so many others, come into Dauphin County to attend the 61st Association of American Hockey League Booster Club Conventions. This grant, this investment to our Booster Club would help make this event a memorable one, as this would help offset some of the rising costs of our Booster Club for our side trips, guest speaker, and offsetting the costs to make this convention more affordable for individuals to enjoy. We have side trips planned to see our wonderful Capitol building in Harrisburg, to see some of the history and sites around Gettysburg, and of course, the sweetest place on earth and home of the 13-time Calder Cup champion, Hershey Bears, Hershey, Pennsylvania. This investment is not just a week in September. This is a year-round investment into Dauphin County and the surrounding area as these booster clubs travel to see their hockey team come play our hockey team from mid october to middle of april and hopefully into june thank you for your time and consideration great do you have a date scheduled for this or an idea of when it'll be yeah so we start september 9th convention starts and it goes to that sunday um the actual convention starts friday afternoon and it'll end sunday around noon time um Hershey's a hotbed for other teams to come into. Sometimes there's two buses that come in from Cleveland, Ohio, Syracuse, New York. There's even now with some of the changing of the American Hockey League, there is sometimes where teams that don't even have a hockey team anymore come down in and they'll sit there for a weekend to watch the Hershey Bears and whoever, whatever team else they're playing.

And obviously, they're all going to be staying in hotels while they're here. Do you drive them to Dauphin County hotels or encourage, give them lists of hotels?

So we have a central hotel here. It's at the Premier, the Best Western Premier, the new one out, so they will be staying in Dauphin County, eating. We have a lot of local tourists to go around and see the sights and sounds to, you know, even show off more of Dauphin County.

fabulous I think it's it's a textbook tourism applicant hundreds of people coming I'm glad you brought up Coachella Valley because uh we had a wager uh the elected officials from Coachella during that series and we came back and won and they sent us the huge box of 20 pounds of grapes 20 pounds of dates I hope Jordan thanked Mr. Helmer, the team, and I think Doug Yinks just stopped in here today too for some stuff. So thank you for the great work that you do and appreciate bringing all these people in.

Thank you very much. I concur. This is one that's easy to support in the definition of tourism.

I appreciate that. Thank you very much. Thank you very much.

All right, next up we have Hershey E-Tours, and Hershey Eagles are on deck.

Good morning.

Good morning. Scott Frederick Hershey eTours. So Hershey eTours is a new concept in the area. It's an idea I had brewing in my head for many, many years. I finally decided to act on it. Three years ago, this is my official third season. It's a new concept. I give guided tours on e-bikes through Hershey. I have big plans for it, but I got to crawl before I run. So I'm trying to build the little tour in Hershey that I have now and get that going. It's been a slow start, as with any business. It's going to take three to five years until you start seeing some profit. It's a little slower than I hoped, but last year was a little busier than the first. I'm hoping this year kind of picks up a little bit. uh get a lot of great feedback the website's getting hits social media is active every year with the grant last year i had put in for the promotional video that gets a lot of shares on facebook and a lot of interaction unfortunately i think the type of business people are afraid to be the first ones to go do it it's not really popular yet right it's different and unique which i love but i got to find that i got to find the right clientele to target for this which i'm still trying to figure out I invested everything I had to start this, and again, I have big plans. I want to keep it going, but I'm still trying to figure out who my specific clientele is right now. Again, there's future plans. The Hershey business community has been 100% supportive, which was my biggest hurdle, at least I thought in the beginning, and went over flawless. I have people approaching me every year. They want to be included, but I can't add more to what I have until I build what I have. So which is why I'm going for the grants and small businesses. It's tough, especially when in a town where everybody comes for chocolate and Hershey Clark and the commercial side of it. I'm trying to draw them to the other side of Hershey to see the locals, what the locals do, the local businesses, the local, you know, the local clientele and get them to interact and support those small businesses.

I mean, you're hitting all the right buttons. And you talked to the folks in the Hershey community who are there. Have you reached out to our friends that visit Hershey Harrisburg? They're more of an encompassing organization that covers Hershey and other countries.

Yes, sir. So I spoke with them briefly. I don't know the name of the individual through the Hershey partnership, which is essentially the Chamber of Commerce. And they are active on my social media posts, so they're following me and keeping an eye on things. I haven't been in touch with them directly other than that, but that is a resource that if they are definitely willing to help and interested in helping, I would definitely pursue that.

Hi. So I'm Sharon. I'm president of the Visitors Bureau here, Hershey Harrisburg. I think you may have talked to Steve at some point. He's our partnership director. I know that you are on our list of things, you know, list of attractions. And we did just hire a new social media manager a couple weeks ago. She's doing fantastic work. So I'll be sure to send you your way to get some.

Absolutely. Yes. I'll give you my contact before I leave through then.

And I as one commissioner appreciate you put it all out there a lot of times. make a business successful you got to risk it all now uh obviously you're starting from from the ground up so it's got you got to build it's going to take a couple years but appreciate you taking the risk here and being honest with us

So can you tell me how it works if I'm like coming into town with my family, we want to take a bike tour, where am I going in Hershey? I mean, I'm pretty familiar with Hershey and like, what's the bike tour like? Is it designed specifically for the individual or is it a typical bike tour where you hit certain businesses? Like, just tell me a little bit about it.

Sure. So the bike tour starts at the Hershey History Center. That's where I'm based out of. Yep. On our website, it kind of explains everything. I have a question and answer section. And so you would come to the Hershey History Center. That's where it starts and ends. The tour is approximately three hours, 13 to 15 miles, depending on the variation. This year, I said I didn't expand. I did kind of expand a little bit. I added... two main stops instead of one tour so seltzer's abalone in palmyra is one main stop and then indian echo caverns wanted to get on board that's the other main tour with those tours there's another couple small stops as well supporting the local small businesses okay um and eventually i'd like to have multiple tours to choose from but again i gotta crawl before i can run here gotcha

All right. Any other questions? So when you say local, that's not sort of downtown Hershey. Yes, sir. That's Palmyra, Indian Echo, Cameron. I mean, I think about Hershey as being stopping for a Proneos sausage. Proneos is on it. Having some sort of flavor for what's happening in downtown Hershey. Some of the historical facts are going out to Milton Hershey's campus, Milton Hershey High School. You know, sort of that may be more of a flair. And you partner with the local businesses you bring the people to. Is that how this works? Yes. Yes, sir. Yeah. They benefit. You deal with some kind of sponsorship.

Yeah. And Pronio is one of my stops as well as Cherry Blossom Creamery. That's a new ice cream place in between Palmyra and Hershey. So I try and promote the newer stuff to, you know, people want to get their names out there.

It's a good concept, I mean, and give you a lot of local feel. I like the idea. I may have to come and join you.

Absolutely.

George, if you stop for a perennial sausage, you're going to have to have it cooked. Well, I mean, tell Mike to have the grill open.

That might be a good idea. I mean, Schmidt's Sausage is now grilling out for lunches, so they should be doing it down at Perennial's too.

And ironically, one of my, I think the most popular stop is Beef Jerky Experience.

We go there too. That's one of the stuff that was closed.

Well, they still have the over at the, at the outlets and they had, okay. Yeah. But the, the, the Avenue store did close. Yes. All right.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

Appreciate it. All right. Next up is Hershey Eagles. Hershey figure skating club is on deck. Is Hershey figure skating club here? is Hershey Harrisburg Sports and Events Authority here. And on deck will be Hershey Junior Bears Incorporated.

You're here representing the Junior Bears too? Yeah. Thank you.

Not making it. You just got a glove?

Good morning, gentlemen. Greg Cook, Executive Director, Hershey Harrisburg Sports and Events Authority for Big 26 Baseball. We are excited to be working on our eighth year of hosting the event over at FNB Field on City Island, of course, Penn State Harrisburg as well. I know all three of you guys are very familiar with the event. There's baseball start to get loose because you're invited for first pitch once again this year. Three games to choose from. Similar schedule this year. Buddy program game and picnic on Thursday night. Game one, Friday night. Game two, Saturday afternoon. Game three, Sunday afternoon. Present the trophy and then the kids go about their way. New partnership this year with Hershey Park, who has agreed to provide a park ticket to every participant, both the players and buddies. So we expect that that'll provide some extra value, which is what we're trying to do on an annual basis, is to give these kids a memorable experience. And things like that definitely go a long way. But we put them in the dorms to give them that college atmosphere. uh we give them motor coach transportation back and forth from penn state harrisburg to the baseball stadium uh and then of course their experience at fnb field is full-on minor league you know as good as as good as you can have it pretty much anywhere in the country the feedback that we continue to get is extremely positive there's nothing better to see the kids connecting with their buddies and some relationships that have evolved over the years where the players will stay in touch with their buddies, sometimes come back during the summer, go to Hershey Park with their families. And then the other element that is very gratifying is to see when players actually sign a college commitment with a college coach who is in attendance to scout them and to assess their talent. And we've seen all of that, and we're hoping for all that stuff to continue more and more.

Fabulous program. I think I threw out a first pitch last year. The buddy program is, I think, the best part, though. I know it got rained out last time.

Was it last year that got rained out?

Last year, yeah. And we did wiffle ball instead at the farm show, which I thought it was actually really cool. It was. I mean, that was just a really cool experience. i i knew some of the local buddies and i think it was cool to see uh just them light up over that so i think this is a real benefit for tourism and a benefit for the community kind of touches on both i feel like so yeah this is this is a brainer to me but any questions comments

My comments are of the couple times I've thrown out the first pitch, bounced one, and last time it was right down the middle. I was down. They say aim for over top of the catcher's head. I was down Memorial Field practicing 30 throws before I went. Arm was a little sore, but I had the distance.

Yeah, and you took it from the mound, too. A lot of people throw from the mound.

Smart Alex on both dugouts are making catcalls. Go to the mound. So I went to the mound. First time, didn't make it.

but last time yep that's the last one to remember the most recent gotta box all those noise all the noise out that's tough george it's hard

And we appreciate your support over the years and hope to have it continue.

And first of all, I think it's a great event. Tell me just a little bit about attendance numbers. Because I think that's some of the challenge with this is to boost up the attendance numbers and to ensure that we are getting folks to have the concept and the way it's run, people involved, all of us home. But tell me about what we're doing to try to increase attendance.

We're going to try to target some things on social media this year that we've never done before. The way the program is run right now, it is breakeven or slightly north of that, which allows us to continue as a nonprofit organization. But certainly we'd like to get more eyeballs in the ballpark. We'd get about 500 a game. largely made up of friends and family of the two teams and the buddies and their families. So the problem with our timing on trying to get Little League out to the game is that most Little Leagues are done before our event takes place, and kids are just all-stars. trying to make it to Williamsport at that point. But we will continue to try to target baseball fans, high school baseball people on social media channels and just make the event a little bit more visible to the general public. But it's got to be those fans who are baseball that stop and think i should go out because see some good baseball some good young high school all-star baseball you know it's a little different than football where people will go see a football game no matter who it is or where it is uh baseball is a little bit different so uh we need to try to target the baseball people

Have you ever thought about bringing some ladies in softball out to the mix? I'm just thinking of ways to enhance the event.

Yep. We explored in pretty fair depth adding a softball component to it, and we ran into some hurdles with that. But it's certainly something that is on our radar, too. branch out into things like that.

We've got some outstanding young ladies up there. I'm sure we're not maybe a way to draw some local fans. But it's a great event. Thank you. Appreciate it.

What's the date this year? The buddy game is Thursday, July 30th. And then games one, two, and three are the 31st, 1st, and 2nd of August.

Great. Thank you so much. You gave me a fidget spinner to play with the rest of the day. Thank you very much. All right. We've got the Hershey Jr. Bears Inc. and then Hershey Jr. Bears Inc. Quebec team on deck. Oh, did they leave?

make a couple comments on their behalf as my son played on the quebec team years ago there's a misconception out there that because it's the quebec team they go to quebec to play well that's true but leading up to that there's a residency requirement which extends 110 miles from hershey which includes part of new jersey maryland and new york so kids from there do come and try out for the team um it's the drought in late spring and summer and then in the summer there's a training camp there's a mini camp and then July and August and then the tournament itself is in February but the reason I bring that up is because there's a 18 kids on the team and during that time period i would argue that there's more heads on beds from this than 97 percent of applicants are hearing from these individuals come in with their families they stay at the local hotels uh the teams from maryland new york dc and even the czech republic that are coming here we're all staying at a local hotel so the impact is great a lot of people just think because it says quebec they just leave they do eventually for a week in february but i have seen it firsthand uh and the the amount of impact here as far as heads on beds which is supposed to be uh one of the primary components of the torres oh and uh johnny goudreau george i know you remember that name anybody watch the olympics this year the United States team won but they all held up that Jersey afterwards and Johnny group who drew and his brother played on the Quebec team John in 2006 out of New Jersey and his brother 2008 unfortunately killed by a drunk driver in the past two years because that's one talk about the impact that I'm aware of for this event

Next up, we have Hershey Symphony Orchestra and HHS. The 80s group is on deck.

I used to play softball, so I'm on standby.

Should I start or? Yeah, go ahead.

State your name and then get started.

All right, great. Good morning, everyone. It's good to see you. My name is Susan Kord. I'm the Executive Director of the Hershey Symphony Orchestra. It's a pleasure to be before you this morning to tell you a little bit about the Hershey Symphony, its history, its purpose, and our grant request. I have been a resident of Dauphin County since 1987. resident dairy township since 1988 and i've had the pleasure of serving many non-profit organizations in our community in particular a number of them that are arts related and i can't tell you the joy that it brings bringing joy to the faces of people in and around our community through arts programs like the hershey symphony Not only are we providing to the cultural fabric of the community, we're providing to the well-being of our residents and our guests who come in. And we're also providing an affordable way to experience live music. And also, as you're interested in today, a way to help boost the local economy. We have been in business since 1969. We're entering our 58th season this coming year under the direction of Maestro Greg Woodbridge. We have 80 plus volunteer musicians and a very tiny but mighty, very part-time staff that keeps things running throughout the season. We have approximately 10,000 guests that experience our concerts throughout the season, not including the many thousands that come to the free concert we do on the lawn of Penn State Health Milton S. Hershey Medical Center. Our request today is for $5,000 to help support our marketing and advertising expenses that we can incur. As you can imagine, our ticket sales and our corporate sponsorships and our ads and all the other income sources that we have from generous donors don't come close to covering all of our expenses so for an opportunity to help support some of our marketing and advertising that allows us to focus some of our operational expenses on the many costs that we incur including performing at the hershey theater this specific request is to cover some expenses for marketing and advertising for carousel and concerts which was a production we held in this past March. It not only marked the 80th anniversary of Rodgers and Hammerstein's beloved musical, it also marked the return of the Hershey Symphony to the Hershey Theater. As you know, the Hershey Theater had been closed for about a year for some extensive renovations, which are still ongoing. And we wanted to come back with a splash. And we knew that in order to get people excited, not just about the symphony, but about returning to the Hershey Theater, we needed to really extend our marketing and advertising, which is always very thoughtful and targeted and strategic in what we do. But we wanted to make sure we shatter from the rooftops. We're back at the Hershey Theater. Hershey Theater in and of itself is quite a draw. But then when you pair with it, long-standing community organization and an affordable way for not only residents but guests to experience live music in that beautiful theater it's really a winning combination we had on the day of our performance about 2,500 people in and out of the theater experiencing that no doubt as people came whether it was from near or far they ate at our restaurants they ate they shopped at our shops many of them put their heads in the beds although it's very anecdotal we don't know But we're very pleased to know that we're helping support tourism in Dauphin County through the Hershey Symphony.

Great. How's the newly renovated theater working out?

Oh, it's great. It's great. I think a lot of the renovations that you'll see in the theater, you won't see, but you'll appreciate. All new wiring. Of course, one thing you'll definitely appreciate that the Hershey Theater did was they put in new seats. There's some carpeting. There's some updated restrooms. And for us on the production side, there's a brand new loading dock. There's some new dressing room. So it's making loading in and loading out a lot easier.

One thing I've told multiple applicants, and I would just encourage you, is there's a lot of tools that track your attendees. And I'm sure some of those you have through ticket sales, like zip codes and things of that nature. But work with VHH or Sharon to see if there's some accessible tools for y'all, because some of those future grants... really dependent on the data and the analytics of like where your audience is coming from but I mean for me on this one I think you're also spending it on marketing and advertising which is exactly what we want to see you know like that that kind of a an expenditure like highlighting Hershey a lot of those advertising and marketing expenses are coming right back to Dauphin County organizations like PennLive WITF so it's kind of a win-win that money staying right here Yep. But yeah, if you haven't connected with Sharon, I just want to encourage you to connect and see if there's some resources you might be able to utilize.

Thank you.

Very professional, well-run organization, very worthy of the $5,000 grant.

Thank you.

Appreciate your time this morning.

I'll see you this afternoon.

All right. HHS, the 80s group. good morning and on deck is historic harrisburg association but we're running early so they might not be here yet good morning oh look at this

He's not here. I think the double X is for Justin. The double X is for Justin.

I thought, well, Justin. He's not here, so he gets the double X. This is great. Very cool. All right, whenever you're ready. We can get you. No, we're good. We're good. I can wear the double X. I can wear it. No, we were just joking. Go ahead. Get started whenever you'd like. Hey, all right. Good morning.

We're from Harrisburg High, all 80s group, which is a decade of alumni from 80 through 89. And we've been getting together, I guess, now for the last eight years, other than the COVID year 2020, which did away with everything. And it's been growing each and every year. And last year we decided on Um, getting outside, so we had a dinner and blog down and so more with Julie. We just here. I just was talking with her. We had it down there on on South 3rd street and a great turnout. A lot bigger than what had done in previous years and so we were still charging up until last year. And the reason why we decided to switch over to get sponsorship down, because we want to offer it for free. Versus charging and that way we can open up the. The floodgates basically for a lot more people to be able to come. Um, all of our events have always been at the, like, the hotels the 1st, 3 years we were over in Cumberland county, of course, at the, which is what John Harris now. And, um. Oh, you know, basically the whole hotel was filled up with all of our people. We rented the. The guest rooms, and also the presidential suites, because we have our receptions there as well. And so now, this year, we'll be doing it over here. Um, you know, the hill and crown plaza, because everything will be kind of focused in on downtown. We're having a concert and dinner. If you look on the application there. Belladonna is going to be performing there on at so on July 31st on Friday. And John, I understand he's been helping you guys with the culture for the last few years. He's also participate in helping us. He's the manager also belladonna so they'll be coming perform. uh they're so a lot of the expenses with the talent they all will be staying at the hotels here uh all of our speakers for it's a three-day event too all of our speakers they also will be coming from out of town they'll all be staying and and the best part with us uh we all stay at the hotels also because it's convenient for us to be able to to uh function as far as being close to the event and most of our group which is You know, 50, 60, 70 year olds, they don't like to be out and then have to travel back home. So they do stay downtown as well. Whenever we do our events in this year, just being free from looking at the cultural festival last year, the city's event in July, a lot of work people have been in all attendance in there. And that's when we knew that. By eliminating the cause, it would bring in a lot more people. versus having to pay so that's why we said we were going to get sponsorship this year and not have to charge and it's free and open to the public so a lot a lot more people will be able to come and that three minutes went fast i insurance here. Anyway, I got a little bit more, but Sharon, I didn't get to meet her in person. We did speak over the phone a few times as far as the marketing aspect of it that we can start to work on as well to broaden it out because we don't have a lot of... things geared toward our age group, but now this is something that is, and they can come out, enjoy downtown Harrisburg. I just learned that El Sol's not even there. We patronize them, and they made a lot of money off us last year, so now we have to figure out another restaurant or something that we'll be able to patronize downtown because now that's gone, but we'll see. We'll see how that goes.

So it's a three-day event. And this organization represents alumni through the 80s from Harrisburg High School, which I would assume is, you know, thousands of people. Yeah. What's your what's your typical attendance for for an event like for a three day event?

You know, so far, like 400, 500, 400, 500 people. And then there are guests, of course, like, you know, married or guests, whoever. Yeah. So it doubles in that regard.

How many of those Harrisburg High School graduates live out of town? Like, I would assume there's some that come back for this. It's kind of like a family.

Yeah, we have an algorithm. So they come from all over, like all over the South and even farther away as Texas and California. That's awesome. And as far as local is concerned, it's about a split. So 60-40. Okay. And local meaning not in the city, but like Susquehanna, Lower Paxton. Sure. uh west handover middletown you know like that so they're all they're kind of all spread out and that's why i was saying that even the ones who live here when we do our events every year they do come in town or like across the river where it was originally yeah and they we we load up the hotels there so do you have any idea of how many total hotel stays there are over the three days we didn't have to track it before but now this you know changing over to this format. That's something we'll have to track now. But we know that most of we have links to we share with email and also on our pages in years past. And we'll still do the same that this year for them to be able because they always give us a discount rooms for our block of rooms that we do with And we'll have to do more because there are speakers. And now that we have a concert, we have all of them. We have to provide rooms for all of them. So we'll have to have a whole lot of rooms this year.

The $42,000 budget, marketing, talent, what all?

Marketing is the only thing I didn't include. We have other sponsors that we're working on to cover the marketing part of it. But I know Sharon, we had spoken. She said that they would work with us as far as the marketing campaign too.

But it goes to talent as well.

Well, that's huge. The talent, the stage, lighting, sound, the DJ. And then because it's Dinner in Blanc, that's a new concept too. There's food provided at the event, which is, if you've heard of Dinner in Blanc, where it's outdoor dinner and it's entertainment. And so that's a huge cause also.

I think we know the answer to this, but I've been asking it consistently since yesterday. So I know before you ask, I know you haven't had any city support for tourism. OK, no. All right.

No, I watched you yesterday, so I knew that was good. So I already knew that was enough. I didn't even know about it. So yesterday when you mentioned it a few times, I said, hey, we got to reach out. I don't know if they will, but if they do, that's great. I mean, because all of our everything's in the city Saturday. Um, summer live concert is that reservoir part? That's where our event is. It combines together. So, in which 1000 people came out last year, we're there to this year with it. We were going to do the concert part of it too. They beat us to the punch as far as reservations for the pen show there. But, you know.

Okay.

No, just an outstanding presentation. You're very impressive. It was too short. You tell us what you have with you today. You didn't let us know who's here with you. Oh, I'm sorry.

I'm Stacey Benton, class of 81. I'm Nicole Tate, class of 89.

I thought it would have been class of 2010, Nicole.

We go way back. Good to see you. Great to see you all. Thank you so much. Thank you.

Thank you.

And we can get you a bigger shirt than these people. No, it's good. The shirts are fine. The shirts are fine. We were just joking about it.

For the folks at home.

Definitely want you all to come this year. Great. Yeah, send us invites.

Thank you.

All right. We are at the top of an hour on our list. I'm just going to run back through everyone who wasn't present when I... And just to make sure if they ended up being in attendance. So Hershey Aquatic Club, Hershey Eagles, Hershey Figure Skating Club, Hershey Junior Bears, Hershey Junior Bears Quebec team. And I know you mentioned them, but I just figured I would state them. And we'll go to the top of the hour. But maybe what I'm going to ask instead of the way I did it yesterday is just who is in attendance for the next hour here 10 minutes early. And we'll go ahead and do those. So, yeah, what organization? Great. Come on up. Well, before you come up, let me just state that. The format of this is you'll come sit at the table. For those of you who are coming in at the top of this hour, you'll state your name. A three-minute clock will start. You'll have three minutes to kind of share a little bit about your application. You don't have to use all three of those minutes. If you feel like you can summarize faster, we're thankful. We'll have some questions. We are going through hundreds of these. So if it feels concise and rushed, please don't. sense that that's part of your application. That's just part of the reality of going through hundreds of these. But yeah, we'll get started with, you said Hummelstown Area Historical Society? Great. Whenever you're ready.

Okay, my name is Rachel Zook. I am a friend of the Hummelstown Area Historical Society, and I'm here representing them for their grant request. The Historical Society was founded in 1971 by local residents of the area with three objectives to preserve the history of the community, to educate the public about the history, and to undertake community service projects with other civic and public groups in the area. They purchased the 1815 Parish House in Hummelstown in 2012, and it has been used as a museum, a meeting room, and a sanctuary over the years. It's open to the public for general member meetings with speakers, tours, exhibits, different community events, different groups in the community. Probably over 600 people use it for diverse meetings from the Rotary to the Girl Scouts to a baseball club to quilters. Our two-part request today is to support the community's June 14th Flag Day event and to update the Society's computer hardware and programs. In relation to tourism, visitors report coming to Hummelstown area to the community long after society events to shop and dine in the charming downtown, which is an excellent example of historic preservation and historic activity benefiting the economy. 60% of our membership is outside of the Hummelstown zip code. And in the last 12 months, we've had visitors from Ohio, Arizona, California, and Texas. People come to their hometown and of their ancestors to do research, visit their cemeteries, do genealogy and tour the community. The founder, Frederick Hummel, he's got 6,000 descendants alone. Our request is in two parts, 2,270 for the Flag Day for the community and visitors, a one-day family festival. We did have 450 attendees at our opening ceremony. It's harder to count the day's events. We had several hundred children and guardians there touring the cemetery, visiting the museum, attending the patriotic music speeches by costumed historical figures. This event has been supported by donations from residents, the Lutheran Church, many local businesses. We had 125 volunteers and we are still accepting donations and sponsors and would appreciate the county's support through the tourism grant. The amount requested would be about 20% of the day's costs. And our second part is a request for 1,740 to upgrade the society's computer hardware scanning capabilities and programs. This is to meet increased searches and research requests by out of town visitors and tourists. The digitization of historical resources directly translates into more visitors as their internet research leads them to visit the historical source in Humblestown. I've been impressed with how this historical society represents its community and draws people in. And I hope you'll consider our request. Thank you.

I've been there many times. I think this is a modest request for what it accomplishes. And I don't have any questions. All right. Thank you so much. Who else is in the room for this hour? And Vicka, come on up. I'll go back to the top after this one. We'll go from the top down. But I wanted to wait until we got to the top of the hour. So, yeah.

Yeah.

Good morning, gentlemen. How are we doing? How are we doing? My name is Chad Edwards. I'm the owner of MVIC LLC. I'm here asking for a grant for $40,000 for high school sports. We've been doing this for several years. We'll be looking specifically for the football season. My organization contributes about 20,000 dollars throughout that process as well with a lot of the services that we discount so that we can get these programs on the air for the students do have other funding as well. That comes in from other sponsors and stuff throughout the community. That's roughly between. my contribution in that it comes to about 40,000. So we're able to pretty much match that same 40,000 we're looking for. I don't know if it helps. We've been here obviously several times before. If you guys have any questions, you know, It's pretty straightforward. One of the big things that we made for a change last year that I think was a dramatic change was in the past, really last 10 years or so, we've been broadcasting on local TV stations, specifically digital channels, ABC 27's digital channel, Fox 43. We've broadcast on that. We've streamed on YouTube and stuff like that. I made a change this last year and worked and partnered with PennLive, which was an incredible change, actually blew my mind. So we would average about 1,000 to 3,000 people on a YouTube stream when we would do the local high school football games. We, for our 10 games, hit over 250,000 people watching those games by switching to partnering with PennLive. And when we partnered with PennLive, what we did is I would only partner with them if they made our games free to the public. So I don't want any moms and dads and stuff like that having to pay. They're already starting having to pay at every single school and everything. If you want to watch your kid play, you got to pay $14. If you want to do this, it's $9. So I'm committed to always making sure that nobody has to pay like a pay-per-view type of process with these games. These numbers have absolutely blown our minds. Our average basically on Facebook over the 10 game was 33,000 people watching. In the past, between TV and everything, I think our average was probably around 9,000 people. The other positive about this is that we also broadcast the games taped late on PCN statewide. So the kids get a bigger viewership. They're seen by more eyeballs, more colleges, and so on and so forth. In terms of impact in the area, The kids are the biggest impact of what they get. They get the opportunity to be seen by schools and people outside of this area that they may not be able to be seen otherwise. So that helps a lot of these students go on to college, get scholarships, and so on and so forth. So that's pretty much it. Thank you, Chad.

Questions? I do. Help me understand the tourism benefit to this. And the only reason I'm asking, and I'm going to play devil's advocate a little bit, but then I think I'm going to help you give, I have a couple of lanes that this might make sense in tourism in my brain. But one of the things I'm thinking is I want people to come to the game. I don't want them to watch it on TV.

because when they come to the game they're more likely to spend money in our region they stay at home they're less likely to and that's part of the formula that we're thinking of so so what have you seen that's been helpful yeah prove me wrong i've been in broadcast television for 38 years okay and i have yet to see a single um sprint car race that we've done a single high school sporting event that we've done a single low a single uh local event that any impact has been seen by television. It's a myth that people will stay home and watch the game. When your kid's involved, when the kids that are there are involved, when people are involved and they enjoy going and seeing those games, they don't stay home and watch those games. So what we bring to the platform is new eyeballs or people that can't get to the game. So grandma and grandpa that maybe just physically can't get there can still see their grandchildren play. Community people, moms and dads that are working and can't get to the game can pull it up on a phone or they can pull it up on a tablet, so on and so forth. But I'll give you an example of one of the things that we went up against. Years ago, I was doing sprint car racing. and i'm talking i'm working with this track and they had about 1500 seats bleachers and everything and every week they kept telling us you're absolutely killing our gate and every week they were building new seats those new seats weren't because their advertising was bringing new people in those seats were filling up because more people learned about that track and what was going on when we were done that season they had over 5 000 seats The same type of thing happens with high school sports. If the kids know it's going to be on TV, more of them will come out and they'll support the teams. And we've seen it. We'll go and we'll do some games where there's no one there. And when there's a ton of promotion and the schools help promote it, it's packed. So it does not impact anything. the number of people that are going to go to that game, they're going to go to that game because that's what they do. That's what they're excited about. That's what they like.

It's the new eyeballs and the other people that I think expanded viewership is definitely, um, value added to the region. Um, my, my only request is, um, what can we do to leverage that expand viewership for the benefit of Dauphin County tourism? And here's what I mean. We had talked with someone yesterday in a similar situation. Um, something like a commercial that runs in the in the midst of the live stream sure that highlights hershey park come to our region if you're watching from outside of dolphin county we want to make sure you spend a weekend here absolutely you know here's just putting on display all the great things we have here assuming that there are non-locals watching. There's a lot of non-locals. Exactly. And if you can track those numbers, that's even better. So I think those are the types of things we want to just be able to make. I think this is a great idea. I think the thing I want to be able to do is just shore it up a little bit with tourism, with things like that, working with VHH to see if they can provide some content that might be able to be – regularly every 30 minutes or every hour kind of like shown at the top of the hour that kind of just encourages people to make a trip here and it might be working with their partners as well to see who's interested in those kinds of things that's just that's that's my only my only concern but i do think um highlighting our high school sports high school sports we've been talking about it since yesterday athletics just bring out everybody grandma comes out aunt and uncles come out everybody comes out and they spend money so it's it's certainly something worth investing

And believe it or not, high school sports is back on the rise. It's the highest viewership and the hottest thing right now in terms of coverage. And, you know, high school sports and sports in general, youth sports is exploding. So just to just real quick, in terms of commercials and stuff like that, if we can, you know, one of the things I've always thought doesn't get promoted is things like the fishing, the camping, the The, uh, the hiking that takes place here, we always want to push and know, you know, we, we got to that, but we always push towards the Hershey parks. And that's great. We want people to come here, but there's so many other things that we need to be covering in the area. And it seems like whenever we do get commercials, it's always, it's always things like that. If we can come up with some way to really hit those other things, and even some of the great other events that we have here, I think it would be even more positive. Because it's something that people aren't, you know, people know who Hershey is, but what else is here? And to outsiders, they go, well, it's Hershey Park, but not really interested in going there. But boy, what a great place to camp or hike or whatever. Any questions?

I was just going to say it's a great place for Dawkins County Parks and Rec to be mentioned. Yep, exactly.

yeah we mentioned yesterday over 900,000 people have visited our dolphin County parks just this past year so folks are coming to the events but mentioned some proudly PA jazz fest stuff like that exactly and get it outside of just the big things I think we'll bring in you know it's more eyeballs in that too thank you thank you gentlemen you appreciate it

Next up, Historic Harrisburg Association. On deck is Historical Society of Dauphin County.

Thank you very much and good morning. I'm David Morrison, Executive Director of Historic Harrisburg, and this is Mark Santana, who is the chairman of our Outdoor History System Committee and a board member of Historic Harrisburg. First of all, let me thank you for several years of support of the outdoor history system, which we've been given responsibility for. It used to be handled by the city, but the city no longer had the in-house capacity to keep it up to date and to manage it from a standpoint of content and maintenance. So we've taken that on, but we couldn't do it without the support that we get from the county gaming grant. So we've made a lot of headway in four years and really this coming up year is going to be when we actually bring everything up to date if we get full funding. Last year, we started getting funding as well for a second project, which is our Candlelight House Tour. Every December, the biggest event we have, and it's a major event, over 1,000 people and people coming from anywhere from 10 to 15 states around the country. So we've appreciated that support as well.

That's great. Any questions? You guys do a great job. I think I did one of these tours once, and it's a really good time. For the budget specifically, how much of it will go to marketing? Do you know specifically? It's okay if you don't know off the top of your head. It's probably in your app. I'm not looking at your app directly right now. Oh, it looks like $14,000. $14,000, right. That's what I'm looking at. Okay, good.

And the Candlelight House Tour, some of that goes for marketing as well. And I think it's about $8,000 overall for the Candlelight House Tour. $6,500 to print the book, which is a major piece of information. And a lot of people get that and keep it and so forth. So we're very proud of that. of the tour booklet. It's got over 80 pages and a lot of advertising in it about old house restoration and so forth. And then you gave us additional money for billboard and print advertising, which truly helped expand our reach far beyond our own historic Harrisburg members.

Great. One of the questions I've asked, I think, just about every Harrisburg applicant is, have you received or have you received any tourism money from the city of Harrisburg?

No. We do get in-kind support for the outdoor history system in the fact that City Public Works does the installation for us. When we get new sidewalk displays, they'll put them up or they'll sometimes do minor repairs for us. Gotcha. All right. That's the extent of my questions.

Thank you, David. Thank you. Thank you very much. Historical Society of Dauphin County. And then on deck is Historical Society of Millersburg and Upper Paxton Township.

Hello. Good morning. I'm Beth Zucker. I'm the Vice President of the Board of the Historical Society of Dauphin County, and I'm here this morning to talk about the request that we have for a grant for just under $40,000. First of all, thank you for the opportunity. I'll just tell you a little bit about the request. We are in the midst of celebrating America 250. You may or may not know that John Harris Mansion is 260 years old, and so... was here during the actual revolution. And John Harris and his two sons both provided service to the American cause. So we are taking advantage of the fact that there is a lot of interest right now in that history and preparing about 14 different planned events seven of which are free to the public all educational and we are using we need the grant to help us maintain the house the the home itself is uh being as old as it is it needs constant repairs and as well as some marketing to make sure that we're bringing in out of town tourists for our votes great uh what portion of your budget will be used for marketing $7,500 is for marketing promotions in general, and then another $700 goes to marketing the houses and venue for rental.

Okay. Great.

And we do not receive any funding that I know of from the City of Periscope Tourism.

Thank you for answering that. Thanks. That's the extent of my question.

The last group that was here, you, Hummelstown Historical Society, and then I know we have another historical society, Millersburg over at Paxton Township, all big parts of the community bringing in folks from outside to see the beauty that we have here in the history, and I think that's very important. So I appreciate all of you for what you're doing.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

All right. Historical Society of Millersburg in Upper Paxton Township. And then on deck is home for the Friendless DBA Home Plant Center.

All right. Well, good morning. Yes, I'm representing the Upper Paxton Millersburg Historical Society. We asked for some funding for painting the first floor of the museum. As you may or may not know, we are in the old firehouse over there in Millersburg. It's high ceilings. Their budget is a modest $60,000 a year. They work heavily with volunteers. They have one staff member. But they're doing amazing work. I just want to thank you, too, for the funding through the gaming grant, our storyboard project. So we're in the works of putting a whole storyboard. starting with the Palau Indians. In fact, we're older than 250 years too, older than our country when the Palau Indians came in. And we're really excited about putting that down by the Susquehanna River. I think one of the important things about tourism, I represent a few, as you can see, see you again later, nonprofits in Northern Dauphin County. We do a lot of cross-marketing. I think that that's important for this tourism grant, as you know, A couple of years ago, I did an oversized postcard with Every Door Direct marketing. I got all the local retailers involved and nonprofits so people could have a day of eating, shopping, playing in Northern Dauphin County. And that's using resources, I think, a little bit better for all of us to do a huge marketing blitz. So as you look on social media and stuff, you'll see the Millersburg ferry boat even promoting the historical society, the colony, all the different things, even Lake Tobias, things that are happening in Dauphin County. I think coming together makes us much stronger and a place where people want to come. And because of the money we've already given, we have seen incredible results. We've already been able to digitize the 137 years of the Upper Dolphin Sentinel. Some of that was because of you and other grants that we received. That's all online now on our website, and we're starting our member access for that. So we have a ton of interest. We have a lot of appointments, private appointments where people come in. They want to see the artifacts. We have four stories of artifacts. and we're in this little town of boersberg with maybe 4 500 people so um getting this painted though it's it's a distraction and i know part of the tourism is beautification it's really important to get this first floor painted it looks terrible if you took the pictures off the wall you'd see like big shadows and uh you know a lot of faded paint so that's what our really our support is but also the publicity part too about three thousand dollars it's a modest request i have no questions

see you this afternoon appreciate you uh home for the friendless dba homeland center and then uh humanitarian on deck is humanitarian social innovations harrisburg city performing arts group hello good morning my name is troy beaver i'm the director of development and homeland center and this is wendy shoemaker she's our director of marketing

In 2027, Homeland Center will be in existence for 160 years, and we're going to celebrate that 160th anniversary with a play that's entitled Iron Ladies. And Homeland Center is very deeply rooted in Harrisburg. In 1867, nine of the local churches here in Harrisburg identified two women each. to solve an issue from the aftermath of the Civil War, which was homeless women and children from all the men killed. And that's where we started. These women started the Home for the Friendless. The Play Iron Ladies will be featured at Gamut Theater, which is actually one of the nine founding churches of the location thereof. And it will feature the life stories of some of the founding women. We'll connect the audience with the lives of these women and how their actions impacted Dauphin County history. Highlights will be four live performances, 200 attendees each, and we believe that will generate a positive economic impact for Dauphin County greater than $50,000. Any pieces I missed?

Where are you guys centered in Harrisburg City?

Yeah, we're on 6th Street, 6th and McClay.

I'm going to ask you what I've asked everybody. Have you guys ever received city tourism money? We have not. So you work in partnership with Gamet and other organizations then as well to kind of do this?

Yeah, so we're partnering with Gamet Theater. They're going to co-produce this play with us. And we've also, throughout the process, the research process, worked with Historic Harrisburg. And our playwright is Cindy Dukiecki. She's a historical playwright. She did Philadelphia. And so there's a lot of community interest. We also have some ancillary things going on. We're going to be partnering with Harrisburg Cemetery for a talking tombstone as a way to promote the play. And that will be in September. So that's not part of this, but it's important to know that we have a lot of other cultural events going on leading up to the play.

How long do you anticipate the play to run?

It'll be four nights. Well, three nights and a matinee on Sunday.

Four days. Any other questions? All right, I think I'm good. Thank you so much. Thank you. Appreciate you. All right, next up we have Humanitarian Social Innovations, Harrisburg City Performing Arts Group. does not look like they're in attendance. We'll go to IW Able Banquet Hall. And on deck is JK Coleman Enterprise DBA Men in the Kitchen Restaurant Lounge. Good morning. How you doing?

I'm Ann Marie Cross, and I manage the I.W. Abel Hall, Bankwood Hall, the Steelworkers Union Hall in Steelton. I've had a working relationship with the Marriott Courtyard on Eisenhower Boulevard for the last four years. When I have entertainment sponsor any groups or anything like that, we use that courtyard for our lodging and all. out of town weddings. I booked like I could book 17 rooms in one weekend. We have other events where I booked 27 rooms on a Thursday or Friday and Saturday night. And then that brings all business to the hotel or to the restaurants and things like that. And last year I was obligated or had the opportunity to host a vinyl record show. For one year or for one time in March, it was too late to put in my application and that went over very, very well. So he booked three times this year. And the people that are the vendors were, are not from our area. So they are out of town guests. They stayed at the Marriott. They also had to just tell this little story. They went over to the high point to eat at the pizzeria over there and they gave them so much food that they brought it back to the hotel. and kept it for Sunday and asked me would I warm it up for them one Sunday for their lunch because they were so impressed by all the food that our restaurants give when they come and support our area. So most of the money that we receive goes back into the marketing and back into our website and to keep the upkeep on the hall. And as you know that we don't have a steel mill anymore, so my money downstairs, I try to keep it downstairs so that I don't have to ask upstairs for funds. And then along with staying at the hotel, my out of town guests, we use budget rental car to band because they don't have a shuttle at the hotel. So then I find a driver and then we shuttle them back and forth. So we're also using the rental car business And then different caterers and then photographers and cake decorators and all of that for all of our events. So we're bringing monies into small business.

How many weddings a year do you think you do?

I'm booked every weekend.

That's what I figured.

I've been booked every weekend since 2018. And people call... ask other people, is she selective as to how you get in there? Because every time we call, she's booked. So I have a lot of enemies too. But I'm booked through the end of this year. That's the way it's been. And we do a lot for nonprofits also.

Make sure you message me at the next vinyl record show.

April 2nd.

Oh, April 2nd. No, no, no. I'm sorry. August 2nd. August 2nd.

Yeah. And there was a lot of state representatives there, too, that surprised me, that collect vinyl.

I think it's great that you're utilizing the relationships with the local hotels as well, the weddings.

Yeah, I've had a working relationship with Lindsay for the last four or five years now.

Yeah. I was just going to ask, how many square feet is the hall? 5,300. 5,300 square feet.

right i think that's the extent of our question okay thank you if you go into the website you can i have a whole list of everything all right good i enjoy vinyl so all right you got men in the kitchen coming up and uh on deck is jones resources Whenever you're ready. We might want to wait for, we can wait for Priest if you want. Okay.

If he has food, we can just go ahead.

You got food. Yeah, we can.

All right, good morning. My name is Justin Coleman and my wife and I are the owners of men in the kitchen restaurant lounge in downtown Harrisburg. We're at 606 North 2nd street in the old firehouse building and they're about a year and a half now. And we're coming to you today for our proposal of the spring fling. We originally put together now it's past spring. So we decided to push this back. So now we're targeting more of a summer story. The base that we're looking at are August 14th through the 16th. So, we want to make it a multiple day event to give people the opportunity to do other things in the city as well as spend the night at different hotels that are in the area. So, what we're looking to do is provide live music. People can come and do our great food and then we'll have several games as well throughout the weekend of activities. We spoke with the city of Harrisburg about potentially blocking off the street there. So we can put tables and chairs outside to make it more of a family friendly event. uh we're in conversation with local bands as well as some bands from the uh dc and virginia area to come in and we really think it'll be a great opportunity to provide some tourism for the area it's really the whole reason we created our restaurant you know we wanted to provide an opportunity a place where people could come enjoy great food and entertainment as well oftentimes we hear from locals too you know there's nothing to do in harrisburg they're running a philadelphia dc for concerts and different things we want to provide an opportunity right here for folks to enjoy what we have to offer as well as people coming in from out of town um so that is the event that we're looking to do And I'll say, you know, just this week I had a gentleman that came to the restaurant. He was here for a bowling tournament from Maryland, staying at a hotel. And he said he found out about us from the hotel he was staying at. And they told him, you got to go try Men in the Kitchen. That's how he heard about us. So we think we're doing a good job of, you know, folks coming from out of town, coming, you know, to our restaurant. I think it's also important to note that we're more than just a restaurant. um we've been a destination for a lot of the state reps in the area that become the whole fundraisers on our third floor and really have come throughout the year we also do a celebrity bartender event where we support non-profit organizations in the area just to name a few the harrisburg wrestling organization There was a young woman empowerment group, the Harrisburg Fringe Festival have all come and done fundraisers at our venue. We've been able to raise money to give back to their organization. And the last thing I'll leave with you, we just want folks to come in and be able to enjoy our world famous cornbread. and it really is world famous my mom makes it fresh every day we have people that um door dash just the cornbread to their home they don't want any size any meats just the cornbread so we think this is a great opportunity for folks to come in you know and and enjoy that as well so that's my presentation thank you like the timing of commissioner hartwig returning for the cornbread i knew justin was going to be in here with the cornbread i did bring samples i didn't know if i could but i did bring samples for all of you from allow how you doing young man good how are you it's all good good to see you good to see you as well

You're in a great spot. Did I have a good memory at the firehouse? That was the first place I ate in Dauphin County when I came out and interviewed for a job out here in Dauphin County. So I love that that is actually being utilized again as it was closed for so long. So thank you for being in that building and thank you for your commitment to Harrisburg. Thank you. You know, we appreciate that. I don't have any questions.

No, I'm appreciative that you're looking to do a 3 day event is more opportunity for more people to come look forward to hearing what the bands are going to be.

So, keep in touch with us. Great.

Thank you very much.

And I mean, so much that you brought to downtown. So much culture and the ability to actually gather at a spot that feels like home. uh and uh the ability for uh you to have great food and great events and a partnership um so tell me you know you're running two places now right no just the one we said don't you have two restaurants though there is a minute in the kitchen in york pa we are not affiliated with them so we're solely harrisburg all right yeah so you this is your main focus this is my main focus no more phfa no more phfa you all that's higher three weeks ago from them so this is it good yeah good i'm proud to support you thank you for your investment and uh look forward to the part thank you very much and i didn't have breakfast so this is good can you give mine to sharon your mind is showing lamont's coming to steal the cornbread right away

All right. Up next, we have Jones Resources. You can come on up. Yeah. Come on up and drop whatever you got to drop. You have two applications, so I don't know if you want to present them separately or... It's only one.

Okay. Oh, okay.

That's fine. Thank you.

Thank you. All right. So... You guys ready? Yep. All right. So my name is Lamont Jones of Jones Resources. What I'm seeking today is this is the third annual Des Mangus Classic. The first year, you guys definitely supported. Last year, you supported. I mean, every year, you guys supported. And each year, we're looking to grow. This year, we have some new elements where we're also adding back to school Uh, programs, and we're partnering with, um. Triax Inc, Mr Andre for now is here out of Baltimore last year. He was very influential in our event 2 day event every year. We're looking to grow more and more. So the more funding we get. the better we can spread this message. But right now, I think we're in a unique space, not just with Coach Dez. I know you guys know that we named the street after him. You know the commitment that he's made to our city and our youth and what he's continuing to do to this day. He is still active in our community, and we just want to make sure that we're continuing to honor him. But the vision for this event is to make sure that we're having – an equivalent or even greater than if you can remember LeSean McCoy's Shady Day where the park was utilized throughout the weekend throughout activities. So sports tourism is something that we can actually bring um attract individuals and their families um to our city um this year we're looking we at least eight of our i mean five of our teams are from out of town um three of them are from here um we're really working hard uh across the board to bring uh more notoriety to the city of harrisburg so um i'm gonna pause for a second and allow uh mr andre to say a few words

Good morning, gentlemen. My name's Andre Brunel. I am out of the Baltimore office. You hear me? So the main objective is so the first year myself, some colleagues, we came up here and we saw how how big this event was the second year. You know, during that year, we promoted Within the region to to kind of recruit other schools teams to come to this event and we found that it was successful last year. We, you had at least 20% more than the 1st year of attendees and what we're looking to do. The objective is to team up with outer regions and other areas. To bring them here to be a part of this event and what it does, you know, I'm a tourist myself, you know, I come here for this event and I say, hey, there's a lot going on here. I want to explore the area and just just that alone opens the door for opportunity for the city for people to to gravity to interest a lot of history here that people don't know about. And it's what this event has shown has demonstrated that opportunity to get familiar with that. So.

So this is a two-day basketball tournament. How many teams came in last year?

We had 16 last year. The first year was more than that. And then the second year we had a drop-off due to, I just want to say a conflict of scheduling. But this year we're expecting eight. And the reason why we're only looking to do that amount. But as we grow, we want to do more. But as of right now, just to have a structured event with the high school teams. How great would it be to see Still High playing Harrisburg? How great would it be? What about Hershey or Lower North? We could bring them in.

I didn't know Hershey was known for basketball, but they had a hell of a run last year.

But you get the point.

What are the dates for it?

August 15th and 16th. August 15th and 16th, a two day event and just hearing Justin's date. So he's from, yeah, yeah, yeah. He's like, but, but again, our timeframes are different. I know he's more evening oriented. We're more during the day.

However, is it outdoors? Is it indoor?

Reservoir park.

Reservoir park. Yeah.

Yeah. Reservoir park. But then there is on the final day, there is a reception and maybe next year, knowing that if he continues to do his only same date, maybe next year, We can collaborate because we do have a reception for Dez that final day after all of the festivities are over, and that will be at Full Circle over there on Woodlawn Street.

So it's a two-day event. Do you track hotel stays? Do you have any idea how many hotel stays you get out of this event?

Well, last year, I'd say the first year was probably the biggest, but this year we anticipate a good amount of people because of the five teams are not being from this area. We're actually... bringing them in. So, um, I am since you paid that number to grow a whole lot more.

So, and we want to collaborate with the hotels also because they are actually part of the marketing, you know, as people come in, they, you know, give our information, Hey, what's happening in the area. This is what's happening in the area. So it helps with our marketing.

How much of your overall budget is.

So, yeah. Um, every year it got to go up, but this year, uh, we had, cause last year I think we only had maybe $15,000. and we spent maybe, we had to build out the website first and that costs about five. Yeah, man. So right now I think we got about 3000 in marketing. But I think that number can grow again as we increase our budget. If we can get close to what we're asking for, we'll definitely increase it. But radio time is big for us, the flyers, and then the connections that we have is what we're really utilizing as far as who Coach Dez is, Curve Small, where people reach into these other areas and try to make this event as successful as possible.

Last question I have is, have you ever received a Harrisburg tourism grant for this or any tourism money for this?

Yes.

You have received tourism money from the city of Harrisburg?

Dauphin County? From you guys? The city of Harrisburg. Oh, no, no. Well, can I? No, we haven't received it in a cash form. We definitely partner with the city, you know, in my position.

Offsetting expenses? Yes. Subsidizing expenses? Yes. But you haven't received tourism dollars? No. Okay.

That's the extent I love the idea of youth sports and we've been talking about the last 2 days. The impact of new sports in Dauphin county is huge, whether it be. In county events, or right across the county line and in the net. Click Lewis arena and. THINGS THAT TAKE PLACE DURING THE SUMMER WITH DON ROSS. YOU MENTIONED SMALL WITH ROSS ASSISTING WITH HIM FOR 17 YEARS. ROSS HAS KIDS SPORTS BASKETBALL TAKES PRETTY GOOD SUMMER. BRINGS THE COMMUNITY FROM DIFFERENT AREAS TOGETHER, AND IT'S TEACHING THE KIDS VALUED LESSONS AND RESPECT, AND IT'S JUST A GREAT THING THAT'S HAPPENING HERE. I'M GLAD THAT OUR TOURISM DOLLARS ARE ALLOWED TO ASSIST IN VARIOUS WAYS, BUT I VIEW THIS AS SOMETHING YOU CAN GROW THIS TO BE as division like the destination tournament uh on the atlantic coast i mean we know about the new york city tournaments you're not going to do that but here in Harrisburg. Why not? Why not? No, I'm saying they, you're not going to be in New York city. You're not going to, but that's the vision though. It's just too big, but, but a micro cost, a smaller version of what they do there. Cause it draws, this could be a big draw. Right. Very attractive to outside.

So each year we're going to keep pouring into it. Um, you know, whatever dollars and funds that we get from the, the goal is to bring that level of, um, visibility to our city. Again, we all know what condition our city's in. Again, sports tourism actually definitely does a great piece to, and to your point, around our youth right now, we're working very hard in a lot of aspects to keep them occupied and motivated to deter them from some of the activities that go on after sports hours. Yeah.

Commissioner? Just three comments. The first one is there's not a better person that you can name and have involved and dedicate and give flowers to than Destry Desmangus. I've known him since I've been like four years old. He's a man who has in his entire life dedicated himself to the youth and to this community in a way that has been silent but effective. And he's never been about himself. And for him to get that kind of recognition um i again i used to work in the mail room when i was like six years old with him at the state capitol i remember playing baseball with him and like like uh wiffle ball and the time they spent with me i was in leg braces at the time and the ability to establish relationships it was him and mooch that worked in the mail not not mooch jones um mooch the guy who's the basketball official um he lost all his teeth mooch jones jimmy jones's brother but mooch both him and um yes uh they were they were two people that had such a major impact on me when i was a kid and i know the countless people that he's been able to to help so that's number one when you have something in a guy's name like this and commissioner freeze mentioned it the problem we got in our area is everybody wants to do their own thing all the time you know they want everybody wants 17 basketball tournaments to happen versus figuring out a way to collaborate and making this thing right something we could put it on the map nationally i might say maybe not as big as new york i think harrisburg with the talent that we have and the excitement around the basketball and being such a central location how about a qualifier for the rucker some sort of partnership with the New York organization where we can combine our efforts into one big kind of event that instead of everybody trying to do their own thing, to come together.

Absolutely.

And to your point, it almost took place this year where we were partnering with Edgemont Day. Chris Franklin, another one. We were going to partner with him, but he actually switched his date because he

usually his date falls on the same day but this one is in particular we made this date this year because it's dad's birthday so we want to do it that way but even all of the smaller ones in a qualifying way where we've got some big tourist related event that we can pour into that that would bring and attract folks from everywhere so

Absolutely.

I do have one follow up question. How are you collaborating with like small businesses? Just meaning will there be food trucks there? Will there be vendors there? Can you just speak for 30 seconds about that work? And obviously we know the kind of tourism of bringing people from out of town, but we also know the support local small businesses and things like that.

Right now, the food trucks are kind of tricky because when you bring them, they want to make sure they're the only show in town. unless i mean seriously because they don't want to be able to compete so i usually get um two to three uh food that different cuisines so everybody can enjoy them well well we we want to get trucks in the businesses we making sure that licensing are there um the taxation is there for the city as well um uh what is the cooling stations I mean, there's a plethora of local businesses that we definitely turn to to come and enjoy this and benefit from as well. So we're definitely pouring back into the community.

And you also find some of the smaller businesses, they also want to get involved themselves. So, you know, whether they want to, you know, pass out their information or even sponsor in some way, you know, for the youth. I mean, there's a lot of avenues these small businesses jump on.

We came a long way from $5,000 shoestring budget, man. Uh, we were able to pull off a lot with that, um. Without all of the sponsorship that we thought we would be able to get, but as we grow at each year passes, I see more and more people getting involved in this, uh. This tournament again to commissioner's point both for you for your points is that that's the idea for this just to grow this as big as we possibly can that this is the. This is the place you have to be during August. Play basketball. This is it.

Good. Well, thank you.

Thank you. Appreciate you guys. Yeah. Well, it's 40. Yes, ma'am.

Yeah. All right. Thank you. Thank you, gentlemen. Hey, Lamont. Yes, sir. Are you thinking of a Mod Boots joke? Dark skin.

We're on break till 11 o'clock. We'll see everybody back here at 11.

But I also know a Mod Boots joke. Different families. Oh, that's right.