Gilmer Chamber refuses to “cancel” Taste of Ellijay

Not canceled, but not the same. It seems to be a trending theme in the last two months of events like Taste of Ellijay are being amended to work around the viral outbreak, quarantines, and distancing.

Gilmer County’s Chamber President and CEO Paige Green released a video on social media three days ago speaking about Taste of Ellijay Week. Instead of one day downtown, 2020 will see a whole week of social media posts, updates, highlights, and photos of the flavors and foods that Ellijay provides.

Chamber Communications Manager Caitlin Neal said that the Chamber did not want to completely cancel many people’s favorite event of the year. Most events like this have planned “rainout days” to reschedule the event if needed, but with the sheltering and quarantining, even that day was unsure of viability. Neal said they wanted to find some option to make the event still accessible. “We just didn’t want to not have a Taste of Ellijay,” she said.

With many restaurants doing curbside, delivery, or take options. But some are also having to work off limited menus due to the situation. A natural response is to connect citizens with the event to those restaurants who are struggling through this virus or others who are just reopening.

Neal took it a step further, however, as she said the Chamber is taking all the stress out of finding a restaurant as well. Instead of the common argument asking ‘where do you want to eat?’ Neal said the Chamber has made a Facebook and Instagram filter for randomizing Ellijay’s Tastes. The Taste of Ellijay filter will get you started into the week easily, randomizing and deciding for you on where to go.

With testing a beta testing, the filter is already been viewed 11,900 times and captured close to 1,400. With the event not starting until tomorrow, these statistics are all from preview testing and beta runs.

But filters, social media, and online efforts are still not enough for our Chamber as Neal expressed plans for more outside of restaurants like chalking information on the sidewalk in addition to other ideas. The entire campaign is not only helping a favored event to survive, but also to rally citizens to support local businesses amid the Coronavirus outbreak.

As the week continues and we follow up with the event, the Chamber will be hosting and resharing posts of their own as they curate the mostly online campaign for Ellijay. Follow the #TasteOfEllijay on social media outlets for more as well.