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PETOSKEY CHAMBER LAUNCHES COMMUNITY CASH PROGRAM
Community Ca$h
In an effort to promote local buying, the Petoskey Regional Chamber of Commerce (PRCC) has launched the Community Cash Program. The public is now able to purchase these checks at the chamber office for redemption at businesses who are members of the Petoskey chamber.
This new program replaces the CertifiChecks program which received national attention in early 2009 when the company out of Dayton Ohio that managed the program filed for Chapter 7 Bankruptcy. At the time, there were many un-redeemed Certifichecks still active in the community, and the PRCC honored those checks at a loss of more than $7,000 to the organization. The chamber has filed a claim in bankruptcy court in an attempt to recover some of those losses.
After extensive deliberation, the PRCC Board of Directors elected to start its own locally-managed program. “We liked the concept of what CertifiChecks was doing and it was quite successful for us,” said Carlin Smith, PRCC President. He said the chamber had been working with CertifiChecks since 2001 and in its last full-year they sold more than $65,000 worth of the checks. “That’s money that we know was being spent at local businesses,” he added.
Smith said the decision to move forward with a locally-managed program did not come lightly. He said the board studied the program thoroughly and made many adjustments before getting it launched. He said they’ve been working on this for the past six months.
First Community Bank joined the PRCC as a sponsor of the program and volunteered to underwrite the initial printing costs of the first set of checks. The bank will also house the account and will provide check-stamping services. The checks will be sold in denominations of $5, $10, $20, $25, and $50 and a limited inventory will be kept at the chamber office for sale. Custom-denominations or large orders can be filled on a pre-order basis by calling 347-4150.
The chamber will charge a service fee of $1 per check to help cover future printing costs as well as marketing costs. That fee will be reduced on a sliding scale for purchases of larger quantities of checks.
“Community Cash will make great gifts for all gift-giving occasions and they work well for employee bonuses,” Smith said. “It’s like giving the gift of Petoskey to someone.” He said the checks can be redeemed at more than 700-businesses in the Petoskey area including many of the large retail stores who are chamber members as well as area resorts and small, independently owned businesses.
