Ambassador Visits July 2021

Recently our Ambassador Team was out celebrating some big things with some of our members.

New member The UPS Store, located at 18140 Zane St NW is owned by Lori and Sean Dilks. Lori shared that she always wanted to be an entrepreneur; and this franchise was a great fit. The UPS Stores are all about the “-ing” – printing, notarizing, shredding, binding, laminating, faxing, mailboxing, returning (mostly of Amazon packages) and so much more. They also rent mailboxes that have an actual physical street address rather than just a PO Box and can accept packages/mail from all carriers. 
They currently have 8 on staff, although 4 of her work “kiddos” are leaving for college soon. 
The UPS Store was open all through the pandemic. (We mentioned Amazon returns right?!) 
If you have not been into their store yet, pop in and say hello to Lori and her team and check out all the “-ing” things they can do for you. 
  Next, we went to Sherburne County Area United Way. where we celebrated their new Executive Director Kat Sarff and a new office location with a ribbon cutting. After working from home for many months, they are quite happy to have a space that works for their team of four. 
Sherburne County Area United Way works to fill the gaps in the community, find solutions to complex issues, and often work in corroboration with other local agencies. Current “works in progress” include working with various local agencies on the childcare issue, partnering with Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library, planning the upcoming Shiver Elk River (February 2022), spearheading a DEI program: “Empathy & Equity”, as well as ongoing projects like Community Connect and iEmpower!
  From the United Way office, we walked down the hall for another ribbon cutting ceremony with one of our current Ambassadors. Janet McCarty is co-owner of Virtual Bookkeeping USA with her husband Keith. Virtual Bookkeeping provides bookkeeping, payroll services, and training and consulting on Intuit’s QuickBooks program. They are “the missing piece to your bookkeeping puzzle.” Because they can operative virtually, they have clients all over the USA. In their office they have a cool light up map of the USA with all their client locations pinned to it. (Think adult Lite Brite). 
Janet and Keith had outgrown their previous space with 2 full-time and 3 part-time (work from home employees) and needed walls separating the multiple aspects of their business. Now both Janet and Keith can both work with clients in their separate spaces without interfering with the other. They also have space to do in house consulting and training. 
Janet shared that she became an Ambassador because of their original Ambassador Team visit when Virtual Bookkeeping first joined the Chamber. She was so impressed with what the Ambassador Team was doing that she wanted to join them.