It’s Friday, June 19, 2020, and we’re about to hold the largest ribbon cutting celebration Saratoga County has ever seen.
It will take place today at 11 a.m. We really have no idea how many people will participate. We’ve invited everyone!
BUT, this ribbon cutting will feature the same ribbon being cut in more than 2 dozen locations across Saratoga County simultaneously. That’s what makes it the biggest.
Normally when we do a ribbon cutting, it is for one business in recognition of an investment they’ve made in our community. It can be for a new business or an expansion or a relocation or a significant milestone anniversary.
Today’s ribbon cutting at multiple locations simultaneously is designed to celebrate the reopening of Saratoga County’s economy.
The Chamber and our partners at the Saratoga County Reopening Advisory Board as well as Discover Saratoga, Saratoga County Prosperity Partnership, the Saratoga Springs DBA, the Saratoga Springs City Center and SEDC will all be involved in one place or another.
We’ll be in downtown Saratoga Springs as well as the Villages of Ballston Spa, Schuylerville and Mechanicville. We’ll be in the Town of Day and Edinburg to the North and Waterford, Halfmoon and Clifton Park to the South.
We’re now in Phase 3 of Saratoga County’s reopening. And while there are still some sectors that remain closed, we simply cannot wait two more weeks to share the news that Saratoga County is open for business for those who are wondering what is open and what is not.
The ribbon we are using features the Stronger Together Saratoga County logo created a month or so ago to celebrate the many collaborations we’ve seen that have helped us get to this point.
We’re also providing every City, Town, Village and Hamlet with two Stronger Together signs personalized for their local community to use in the ribbon cutting photos.
We’ve created a Saratoga County Ribbon Cutting event on Facebook. There, everyone will be able to see all of the ribbon cutting photos and videos our staff, partners and volunteers shoot capturing this historic day.
This ribbon cutting celebrates the investment of time we’ve all made during New York’s PAUSE as we sheltered at home to put health first while placing our economy in jeopardy. Today is the day where we hopefully can feel the freedom and safely start to return to the businesses we know and love more regularly.
We believe every ribbon cutting is the celebration of a dream come true. For us here in Saratoga County as I write this, we dreamed of a day when there was no one in Saratoga Hospital fighting for their life versus COVID-19.
That day came a week ago, on Thursday, June 11. That was the day when we decided to break out the ribbon on June 19. That was the dream come true. Now we cannot let down our guard.
As Angelo Calbone, the President of Saratoga Hospital told a group of local leaders the other day, we still must be vigilant. We need to social distance. When we can’t, we need to wear a mask. We need to wash our hands. We need to disinfect surfaces. We need to take special care of our seniors and those with underlying conditions.
But if we continue to do this, this countywide ribbon cutting today will go down in history as the day we turned the corner.
The day we celebrated the sacrifices so many have made to get here as well as the potential of what we can do together going forward to rebuild our economy.
