The Reporter covers Miller, Morgan and Camden County in Central Missouri's Lake of the Ozarks and is published once per week on Wednesdays.

 

Published May 10, 2017

$300 in prizes for Dogwood Business Hop

CAMDENTON – Despite unfavorable weather, the Dogwood Business Hop was deemed a success by organizer Bill Wood, owner of Bill’s Art Center and Gallery.

The main reason for the event, which took place during the Dogwood Festival, was to draw visitors to local businesses and get them in the door of the participating business.

Anyone wanting to participate would pick up a ticket from any business with a dogwood flower painted on the window.

On the back of the ticket was a list of all participating businesses. The person would then go to these businesses and have someone at the business sign the ticket.

The one who visited the most businesses would win a $100 prize and others could win one of many $25 prizes.

Wood said they only had about 10 or 11 participants but they did give out a total of $300.

The prizes were gift certificates that could only be used at one of the participating businesses.

“The idea is to get people in and seeing what’s in there, what do they do,” Wood said. “We had over 20 businesses participating this year.”

Woods said that the winner, who is a lake area resident, was surprised at all the businesses in the city. That was the purpose of the event, to draw attention to Camdenton.

“This benefits the businesses because it’s putting people in there and they may not have known about that business before but they know now,” said Wood. “I think a lot of people drive through town and don’t look around or think what’s here. They see the big signs for the big stores but there’s a ton of us ma and pa stores here that also have something to offer.”

Wood testified to that fact since there were some people who came in to his store that had never been there before or didn’t even know he existed.

“Even if they never come back in they can tell somebody else about the business,” Wood said. “That’s how things grow, by word of mouth.”

Woods is hoping to organize next year’s event in plenty of time to get more businesses on board to raise the number of prizes that can be won.

According to Wood, only four businesses contributed to the prize fund this year. If more businesses can contribute next year, then that would result in more gift certificates that could be won and more people finding and going into a business that they may have never known about.

Feedback from businesses that participated was positive, according to Wood.

Though the weather didn’t cooperate, the event was still a positive one and Wood hopes that this is just the beginning of an idea that can only grow and benefit all businesses in the city.

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