(Seguin) — The Seguin Area Chamber of Commerce is leading a local initiative to try discussing more ways to provide more equal opportunities for people in this community.
Chamber President Kendy Gravett says the local effort is an extension of a broader conversation started recently by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Gravett the national conversation focused on people who have traditionally been left behind.
“The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has a national initiative to address the opportunity gaps in our nation and to work together to try to come up with some good ideas to move forward,” said Gravett.
Gravett says the chamber wants to look at ways that the local community is trying to address these opportunity gaps. She says the first virtual event will feature a discussion about education. She says several local educational leaders will be on hand to have a discussion about how we make sure that those opportunities are available to everyone. Gravett says there will be an impressive lineup of panelist during this first event.
“We have the Navarro Superintendent. We have the assistant superintendent; her title is chief academic officer from Navarro. We have the superintendent from Seguin. We have two of our newest members from Texas State University, the diversity inclusion department that will be on call as well as our board member Dr. Bernadette Buchanan from TLU,” said Gravett.
Gravett says the discussion on educational inequalities will get started at 9 a.m. Thursday via Zoom. She says each speaker will be given time to discuss how each entity is working to make sure that the provide the best educational opportunities for all students.
“We are planning to have a discussion about what they are currently doing, their best practices, as a way to share ideas and find out what their thinking about as far as addressing it in their own organizations as well as what they think the community needs to know about these situations and so, we have a lot of news out there and there’s a lot of places to get information and we want to be able to provide information locally to you from the source and that’s our educators,” said Gravett.
The community is invited to listen in to the discussion. Gravett says that people are encouraged to sign up and listen and submit questions during the presentation. She says this is an important topic for this community, and it’s one of the reasons why they selected education as their first topic.
“The attendees will be not in video or in audio mode but they will be able to submit questions through the Q&A option at the bottom of the Zoom or if they want to send questions or issues that they would like to discuss, in advance, they can send it to me at the email that they will get during registration so you must register to be a part of it,” said Gravett.
The chamber is stepping into a new space with this discussion. Gravett says the current challenges in the world today have created a pivot point for the chamber and many other organizations. She says they recognize that they need to pivot towards some of these new opportunities to make our businesses and our communities better.
“There’s just not that many people that have been able to continue life as normal. So, at this pivot time, we need to take advantage of this. We weren’t used to all of these new platforms and I tell you what, I’ve built a lot of skills in the last few months that I was reluctant to spend time to do like being on video and doing presentations and revamping events at the last minute and I mean last minute, right? Is it going to go on? Is it not going to go on? It’s a new world but we want to take advantage of this time and we want to grow and we want to help our community grow and so that’s kind of the idea along with the U.S. Chamber’s national initiative is we want to join in on that growth,” said Gravett.
Gravett says after participating in the U.S. Chamber’s broader discussion, she recognized that there were a number of ways that the chamber could use its organization to help lead some of these discussions.
“We are the organization that can convenes, that collaborates and connects. That’s our three ways that we really shine as a chamber and so to use that platform, we are pulling together the first of our series is the trying to close the gaps of equality, of opportunity and education,” said Gravett.
Gravett says they plan to have more of these types of discussions in the future, including ways to close the opportunity gaps that exist in other industries. Those who would like to join the virtual discussion on education, can register on the chamber’s website, seguinchamber.com, or call the chamber office at 830-379-6382.