Rock Valley Chamber has introduced a new Gift Card as part of efforts to increase population growth and support businesses in Iowa. The Rock Valley Chamber Gift Card can be used in multiple businesses in Rock Valley, including retail stores, restaurants and services.
The new Rock Valley Chamber Gift Card replaces the old Rock Valley Chamber Bonus Bucks system, and will be used across the community for employee rewards and consumer sales. The Gift Card will also be used as part of a housing incentive led by the City of Rock Valley, which will see new home owners in Iowa receiving $7500 in Rock Valley Chamber Gift Cards to spend with participating merchants.
Adam Rosman is the Community Activities Director at Rock Valley Chamber and said the new Rock Valley Chamber Gift Card is a modern Gift Card that will unify the community:
“Bonus Bucks was popular for employee rewards and for prizes and giveaways, but being a paper gift certificate, it was a difficult system to administer. One of the big problems with Bonus Bucks was that if a customer spent say $15.99 of a $20 Bonus Bucks certificate, they wouldn’t get change for the difference. The new Rock Valley Chamber Gift Card can be used like a debit card across participating merchants in the City, so people can spend a little here and there with the balance automatically deducted. This will help us to spread the benefit of the Gift Card out right across the community.”
Adam adds: “Instead of tired paper money we now have a new, modern Rock Valley Chamber Gift Card that matches our aspirations as a city. Our population in Rock Valley is under 10,000 people but it was also the fastest growing community in the last census. Employers in the area need employees who in turn need new homes. We need innovative solutions to support Rock Valley in our drive to make our community an attractive place to live and work, and the new housing incentive using the Rock Valley Chamber Gift Card will support that.”
“New home-owners can spend their $7500 of Rock Valley Chamber Gift Cards at the lumber yard, on groceries, at the electronics store or on coffee. It’s a great way to keep the money in Rock Valley. Rock Valley Chamber supports entrepreneurship, and the Gift Card is another way that we can help our community and our businesses to grow. We’re extremely fortunate that we didn’t lose a single business during the pandemic. There is a renewed passion for staying local and the Rock Valley Chamber Gift Card will help us to keep even more dollars local.”
Local business owner Jerry Kelderman explained why he has joined the Rock Valley Chamber Gift Card program: “I manage the Community Oil Company, a local Cenex dealer, here in Rock Valley; and my wife and I own Nearly New Town, a downtown retail clothing consignment store in Rock Valley. Between the downtown store, the convenience store and auto shop, we find ourselves serving many retail customers on a daily basis.”
Jerry continues: “Finding new and exciting ways to promote Rock Valley shopping and dining is always challenging but will also be rewarding and profitable for the retail stores and for the community. Keeping the essential household spending in Rock Valley is great, but ultimately we are looking for better and easier ways to promote discretionary household spending in the community also. By spending dollars in Rock Valley, you also help programs within the community also, such as the library, pool, parks, youth leagues, recreation centers and schools.”
“This spending will also keep employees working in Rock Valley,” said Jerry. “It will allow Main Street businesses to continue to support the local charities and churches; the growth of each dollar is multiplied many times over. It is increasingly harder to compete with the large online and box store type businesses, so the Rock Valley Chamber Gift Card program can help tremendously with keeping local dollars being spent local.”
David Miller is the Development Director at Rock Valley Economic Development Corp and said: “We have joined the Rock Valley Chamber Gift Card as it is important for our organization to continue to foster and support our local economy and by joining, supporting and supplementing the program we feel we will significantly circle dollars locally.”
The new Rock Valley Chamber Gift Card is part of the Downtown Gift Card concept from payments provider Miconex in association with payments technology solutions provider EML Payments. Downtown Gift Card systems run across the US, in Arizona, Colorado, Illinois, Montana, Michigan, Nebraska, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, South Dakota and Virginia.
For questions or bulk orders, please contact adam@cityofrockvalley.com. Card is issued by MetaBank®, N.A., Member FDIC. Funds do not expire. Non-reloadable and no cash access. For Cardholder Agreement or Customer Service: www.getmybalance.com or 1.833.558.1088.