What does the Vashon Island Chamber do?

The Chamber is known for Strawberry Festival — the island’s biggest celebration — and its guide to Vashon Island businesses, The Map.

But there are so many other aspects of the Chamber’s work that benefit our island.

The chamber is a membership-based nonprofit that supports member businesses and organizations while working to enrich the lives of our island community. This year, we’re building off our foundational programming to expand our service to the community even more.

Yes, the Chamber hosts Strawberry Festival, the Home & Garden Fair, Vashon Summer Nights, CiderFest, Halloween and Winterfest. In addition, to support businesses year-round we helped bring Oscar the Bird King to Vashon. We provide ‘The Map’ that helps visitors (and residents) learn about local business and organizations. Plus, we support Islanders for Ferry Action.

As a new executive director of the organization, I worked closely with our board of directors to kick-off our 2025 planning. The first question we asked ourselves was “what are the opportunities to increase our support of our members and island community?” We also discussed what was potentially holding back our growth.

We presented our final plan at our annual member meeting on Thursday, February 20, hosted by Nashi Orchards, focusing on our website, events, local residents and connections.

We had an immediate need to replace an outdated and overpriced membership database system with a new solution. We’ve sourced an option that is easier to work with and helps us better serve our audience. Plus, it’s less expensive. We’re in the process of incorporating the new system and branding into our main website for an April launch.

One thing I learned firsthand as I started my new role is how much time and physical labor goes into hosting our local events. These events are critical to our annual plan, but at the same time, we need to continue our support for chamber members.

So this year, we’ve hired a Strawberry Festival project manager to bring the event to life. Plus, we secured a road closure crew and will hire islanders to set-up and take-down events. It may seem obvious, but converting volunteer roles to on-island jobs is the right thing to do. (There are still plenty of ways that volunteers will be able to support our events!)

This level of program support is now built into our budget and will allow us to continue to invest in local events while keeping the other Chamber services rolling. After all, it’s the income from memberships and ticket sales from events that allow us to continue the wonderful traditions for Vashon.

Speaking of Chamber services, the work we’re doing on the new website will allow us to increase connection between chamber members and the Vashon community. You’ll be seeing added-value blog posts, improved member directory services and locals-only offerings. As we’ve said before: “It Takes an Island.”

Our new website will include an online members-only space where businesses and organizations can connect to share best practices. This space certainly would have added value during the minimum wage increase discussions we had at the end of 2024, and we look forward to leveraging it in the future.

King County has supported our Community Van Program for several years, but we’re now able to invest in growing the service on Vashon. This involves hiring a new part-time Community Transportation Coordinator and dedicating resources to building the program.

We’re also starting The Vashon Chamber Foundation. This will be a new 501(c)(3) nonprofit charity focused on the economic development and sustainability of the Vashon-Maury Island community. This will include studies to understand what we need to do to ensure our community’s long-term economic growth, investments in supportive programming and a new jobs network to help our community find more on-island work.

Like what you’re hearing? I invite you to join the Chamber, sign-up to volunteer, look for job opportunities or join the board of The Vashon Chamber Foundation.

I’d love to hear from you. Reach out to nichole.banducci@vashonchamber.com.

Nichole Banducci is the executive director of the Vashon Chamber of Commerce.