Chamber celebrates business excellence in Steinbach, introduces new award

It was an evening of honouring the best in business at the Steinbach Chamber of Commerce’s Business Excellence Awards ceremony on Oct. 24.

“The chamber is so excited to support the business community and the amazing things that they’re doing,” said chamber executive director Tessa Masi. “I think that the awards are recognition of what those amazing things are. The community gets to speak up and vote with the customer service and the nominations and selection committee. Everyone gets to get together and really celebrate these businesses that are making great achievements.”

There were 67 nominations that were brought forward for the awards.

A new award was presented during the evening: the Legacy Award which acknowledges an individual who commits their time, resources, and influence to improve and invest in their local community. The winner was Hank Klassen, who has worked for 46 years with the South East Helping Hands food bank, including time as its executive director and board chair. Klassen also is involved as an advocate with a committee that focuses on public transportation initiatives and he led an initiative with the Lion’s Club to distribute more than $30,000 worth of accessible equipment for those in need.

“This is quite a surprise for me I really didn’t want to have it,” joked a smiling Klassen. “It’s unbelievable the amount of people that we’ve served and it’s not going to get less, only get more, so we need to come back to you guys for support.”

Klassen said the Christmas hamper program is about ready to kick off and this year South East Helping Hands estimates about 1,400 hampers will be distributed.

“We’ll be coming knocking on your doors for some money. So, if you have extra money and you don’t want to give it to somebody else we’ll take it,” he said with a twinkle in his eye.

“If we all work together we can make a joyous Christmas for some people.”

Kicking off the evening was the Customer Service Award, which is presented to a business who is recognized by the public for the outstanding quality and consistency of their customer service. The winner was Lilac Resort, which was established in 1958.

“This has been a long time in coming because we’ve never won such an award so I have to thank the people who nominated us…” said owner Dan Manaigre.

“To have a customer service award – we have such young people – I think it shows you how great the next generation coming up is. We’re very fortunate to have the staff that we have. Our staffing in the summer goes to 85 people and I would say close to 75 percent of them are kids. Amazing young people. So, this is thanks to our wonderful team that we have working for us every year.”

The next award was the Non-Profit Excellence Award, which recognizes a non-profit organization that is known for enhancing the social, cultural, environmental, and economic well-being of the community. The winner was Steinbach Family Resource Centre, which is celebrating 25 years in the community.

“Last year, we supported 673 families to come through our doors and I will tell you in 2019 that was about half that number so the need continues to grow as our community does. They say it takes a village to raise a child and it takes a village to run a charity so thank you to all of you and the chamber for being a part of our village,” said executive director Jo-Anne Dalton.

The Future Leader Award recognizes an individual between 18 to 40 years of age who demonstrates admirable leadership and vision within an organization or business. The winner was Stephanie Marmus, who had joked ChatGPT wrote her acceptance speech.

“Leadership for me is all about learning and growing and lifting up others along the way and helping people achieve their goals. I feel incredibly fortunate to have the opportunity to inspire and encourage people around me, and being a positive impact on the people we work with, and providing people an amazing opportunity in the workplace. It’s something I’m just so passionate about and I truly enjoy and feel so grateful for that opportunity,” she said.

The final awards of the evening were the Business of the Year Awards, which recognize a small business, a medium business, and a large business that exemplify excellence in most, if not all, of the following areas: growth and stability, innovation, quality of product and/or service, human resource practices, and commitment to community and/or industry.

Winning the small business award was Milieu Market; winning the medium business award was Dynamic Chiropractic and Sports Therapy Center; and winning the large business award was Imperial Metal.