Festival of Trees brings in over $54,000

ZANESVILLE, Ohio- For 25 years, Zanesville residents and businesses have enjoyed the Festival of Trees and this year was no different.

“Seeing the community come together is what’s great. Businesses…you can see the business relationship, they’re buying each other’s entries and incentives,” said Chamber of Commerce President Dana Matz. “And the citizens that come in that have really grabbed hold of this event.”

Festival of Trees was held last Friday and the turnout was a success. There were 218 entries to help celebrate the event’s silver anniversary and in total $54,345 was raised. The Chamber of Commerce is happy with the results of the auction and look forward to helping local businesses.

“The money raised from the auction goes to fund the operations of the Chamber. We are a not for profit, we’re not a government entity, we are a business in ourselves,” Matz says. “So we have to raise money so that we can continue to do what we do and what we do on a daily basis is help local businesses. So since 1905 we’ve been in business for businesses.”

Bidders began picking up their items Saturday and will be able to pick them up through Tuesday. Soon remnants of the fun day will be gone, but the fun will be remembered. Matz says the auction wouldn’t have been a success without the help of staff and volunteers.

“As I mentioned on Friday, it takes a lot of volunteers and a lot of time for our staff to put this on. We’re very…we have a very good team here at the Chamber of Commerce that takes about two and half weeks out of our work life to pull off this event. So a lot of time and effort goes on behind the scenes. So I have to commend our employees and really want to thank all of the volunteers that have helped us put this together.”

In case you’re wondering what item had the highest bid, it was the WHIZ Media Group Christmas tree and advertising package.

“The WHIZ Media tree which came with an advertising package, we sold the tree and the incentive – the advertising package – and then we sold the incentive two more times,” said Matz. “So that was our highest one at $3000.”