Eau Claire (WQOW)- The city of Eau Claire is giving some organizations money in hopes of getting more people to visit the city. Several Chippewa Valley organizations were given grant money Friday with the goal of attracting more tourism.
"Sometimes with special events, the first couple years are the hardest. So we see this grant program as a way to incubate those and encourage them and help them along to their success," says Visit Eau Claire Executive Director Linda John.
Visit Eau Claire, along with the city, presented 13 organizations with grant money Friday. Together, those organizations bring about $1 million to the local economy through tourism.
"There's a lot of money coming into our area from the outside and those visitor dollars support 4,500 jobs in the tourism industry here," says John. "And over $16 million of that goes to the local governments.
Jereme Rauckman runs the Chippewa Valley Powder Keg. He plans to use the funds to help promote the event.
"It helps us market the event; just to get the word out that we've got the event going on," Rauckman explains. "We've got a lot of resources locally. But this helps us get it out to people beyond the Eau Claire area. So every little bit helps."
The annual Silver Mine Ski Jump Competition is also getting a chunk of the money.
"People come from all around the world for this event. That's not cheap by any means; and of course we have a lot of infrastructure and tents we put up. There's just so much going on at Silver Mine that we certainly appreciate the help," says event organizer Dan Mattoon.
"We really want to celebrate things like the Jazz Fest, the hockey tournaments and the Kubb events," John says. "All of these special groups that are working hard to create tourism in our area."
$17,000 of the $41,000 in grants was given out Friday; the rest will be presented in April.
