The last six weeks have been an unsettling time as we all had to learn how to live as normally as possible but avoid an invisible, deadly new threat called COVID-19. \u00a0Working from home or becoming unemployed, staying away from parents and friends, not leaving the house for weeks – all became the new normal for most of us. And while some of you found yourselves unexpectedly on the front lines (thank you nurses and grocery workers, just to name a few!), those who lost their job or livelihood were thrown into a much-worse new normal that made it difficult to even afford the basics.<\/p>\n
So, we have to find another new normal that involves getting our businesses back open while not allowing the virus to destroy more lives.\u00a0 \u00a0For some, these past weeks forced us to reflect and slow down, so we realize now there has to be a better balance between work and home.\u00a0 But I would guess that most everyone is as ready as I am to get back out there and begin figuring out the next \u2018new normal.\u2019\u00a0 \u00a0And since the virus isn\u2019t going away, we all have to learn to do our part to help alleviate the threat while growing our economy.\u00a0 \u00a0It\u2019s going to take time to get back to even close to where our economy was before the pandemic, not to mention Roane County was already showing signs of a slowing economy with closed stores and declining population.<\/p>\n
I am confident that Roane County can emerge stronger, and I challenge everyone to help move Roane County forward together<\/a><\/em><\/strong>!\u00a0 It will take us all, but if we all follow the state\u2019s suggestions and take the TN Pledge<\/a>, I firmly believe we can bring our community through this crises better and stronger than ever.\u00a0 By everyone being aware, posting the information and following simple guidelines, could mean we get through this faster and safer:<\/p>\n The Roane Alliance staff understands first-hand the challenges that the entire business community has had and will continue to face for some time. We are ready to move forward and to help our businesses and community move forward. \u00a0We receive daily information from our US and state representatives and organizations like the SBA, US Chamber and TN Chamber.\u00a0 We will continue to be a resource and work hard to keep our local businesses and community informed and updated through the use of our website RoaneAlliance.org<\/a>.\u00a0 We are also a shoulder to lean on.\u00a0 Have a question?\u00a0 If we don\u2019t know the answer, we will try to find it.<\/p>\n And we especially appreciate our Chamber members, many of whom we have been in contact with these past weeks. \u00a0I hope we were able to help you during this crisis.\u00a0 As a Chamber member you have invested in your community so be assured that the Roane Chamber plans to continue to invest in you.<\/p>\n If your business has been negatively impacted, please know the Roane Chamber is prepared to employ strategies to help.\u00a0 We do not want to lose you as a member, so if your renewal is due we can defer payment or setup installments.\u00a0 \u00a0We want to be part of the solution to get you back to where you were before the pandemic hit.\u00a0 And, I ask that if your business is in the position to help the Chamber by paying quickly, either in full or partially, to please consider as it would go a long way to help us continue our efforts to help our members and the community get through this.<\/p>\n One last ask.\u00a0 Remember the Roane Chamber’s #UniteRoane campaign that began five years ago with a membership drive?\u00a0 Well we are bringing it back because it means more now than ever before – saving our businesses and community.\u00a0 I hope everyone will get behind it, join and share the social conversations, plan to shop local for everything and #UniteRoane.\u00a0 \u00a0Learn more about the Roane Chamber’s shop local programs by visiting the\u00a0Shop Roane<\/a> webpage.\u00a0 \u00a0And don’t forget #UniteRoane #ShowYourLoveforLocal and lets move #RoaneForwardTogether!<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The last six weeks have been an unsettling time as we all had to learn how to live as normally as possible but avoid an invisible, deadly new threat called COVID-19. \u00a0Working from home or becoming unemployed, staying away from parents and friends, not leaving the house for weeks – all became the new normalRead More Moving Roane County Forward Together<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4,12,13,15,16,17],"tags":[30,37,55,59],"class_list":["post-781","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-alliance","category-covid-19","category-roane-chamber","category-roane-county","category-shop-roane","category-shopping","category-unite-roane","tag-covid-19-in-roane","tag-forward-together","tag-roane-county-covid","tag-tn-pledge","without-featured-image"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/roanetourism.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/781","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/roanetourism.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/roanetourism.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/roanetourism.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/roanetourism.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=781"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/roanetourism.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/781\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1150,"href":"https:\/\/roanetourism.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/781\/revisions\/1150"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/roanetourism.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=781"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/roanetourism.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=781"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/roanetourism.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=781"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n