For Lynn Foley, it’s all about making Vicksburg better.

The new president of the Vicksburg-Warren Chamber of Commerce says she wants to improve the area’s image, and get the chamber involved in the area’s economic development.

“There’s so much positive; so much progress being made in our community, especially in the way of education, that is just impossible for me to get my arms around, and unfortunately, Vicksburg has a very negative perception when it comes to education,” she said. “That affects people moving to our area, that affects businesses locating to our area, affects potential jobs for people, and I see our school district moving forward and addressing inadequacies that have taken place in the past, and completely changing, and we need to get that message out.”

She wants the chamber to be more involved in economic development efforts to benefit from the proposed Continental Tire plant to be built between Clinton and Bolton, adding the chamber should take a more active roll in getting the area a piece of the project “whether it’s through support, through assistance, through solicitation; whatever we can do to help those who are directly responsible for those economic development efforts.”

“I hear a lot of talk on the news about the work force in Jackson and the education in Jackson, and we need change that. They need to be hiring from Vicksburg. They need to look at work force here; they need their people to locate in Vicksburg, not the other surrounding area, and it’s up to us to address those people and let them know what we have to offer.”

Foley’s interest in Vicksburg goes back 13 years, when she moved to Vicksburg from New Orleans to be close to her parents, who moved to the area from Anchorage, Alaska.

She was, however, no newcomer to the area.

“I spent a lot of time in Vicksburg as a child, going to visit my grandparents during the summer, when my parents traveled, and when I was in school at Ole Miss would return to Vicksburg. I got married in Vicksburg. I’ve live in Vicksburg several times.”

And she’s been involved in the community since her return, serving on the board and as past president of Vicksburg Association of Marketing Professionals, board member and past president of the Vicksburg Rotary Club, served on committees with United Way and has been involved with the chamber “ever since moving here.”

She served as a chamber ambassador and was named ambassador of the year for two years, she served on the chamber board, and more recently as president-elect and vice president of the community development division.

Chamber ambassadors, she said, “Are the pulse, the heartbeat; they are the extended arm of the staff, when it comes to recruiting and retaining members. We have a small staff of three people. They have so much responsibility, so I find that serving on committees with the chamber of commerce, serving on boards with the chamber of commerce — we are truly a working board.”

Ambassadors, she said, recruit new members and help retain existing members.

“They do that by going out and visiting potential members and explaining the benefits of belonging to the chamber of commerce, which are numerous, so many benefits for business as well as individuals,” she said.

Once a new member is recruited, she said, the ambassador is assigned to the new member as a buddy, to make sure the member knows about coming events and is comfortable attending them. The ambassador also introduces the new member to existing members and encourages them to join various committees in the chamber.

“They also greet members at various events, especially the luncheons,” she said. “We try to scatter ourselves among the members so we’re visiting with members and potential members.”

Ambassadors attend all ribbon cutting ceremonies, all business after hours events, and many of them are on other committees within the chamber of commerce.

Her exposure to Rotary came from Larry Gawronski, the former director of the Vicksburg Convention Center.

“He brought me to a couple of meetings and I knew immediately it was an organization in which I wanted to be involved,” she said.

“Rotary is involved in the vo-tech education efforts and community projects,” she said. “Rotary is the largest service organization in the world. We support efforts from Rotary International like the eradication of polio, and water projects in underdeveloped, areas. Locally, we make contributions to the Salvation Army. We deliver dictionaries every single year to third-graders in Vicksburg and Warren County. We’re always addressing emergency needs of locals or people living in the county.” When she initially became involved with different organizations in the city, Foley said, she looked at it as a way to make new business contacts and use them to help her career.

“But as I became more educated and more involved in these organizations, I have found there’s a lot of purpose in serving the community with these organizations, and that, today, is what drives me to continue to be involved and make a difference.

“I want to make a difference in the community,” she said. “I think Vicksburg has so much to offer and so if I could give the community half of what the community has given to me, I would think that was a pretty darn good effort.

“I’ve gotten so much from the community.”