Bret Schanzenbach
President & CEO
Carlsbad Chamber of Commerce
Thank you to everyone who took the time to join us for our Virtual CBAD Award Week on Zoom in late May. It was a weeklong celebration of individuals, companies and organizations that are making a positive impact in our region. Oprah Winfrey once said, “If you want to feel good, you have to go out and do some good.” That was exactly what our CBAD’s celebrated, those “doing” some good. Over the next several issues of the Carlsbad Business Journal, we look forward to sharing the stories of those who are doing some good here locally.
The difficult part about hosting awards is that not everyone wins. And I know that sounds like a “trophy generation” kind of saying, but it is true. Every finalist for our Carlsbad Business, Achievement & Distinction Awards was very worthy of recognition. And since all of our finalists are amazing, we (meaning the staff, the Board, etc.), purposefully did not become directly involved in the decision-making process that determined the winners. We let impartial judges from outside our region rate and rank the nomination essays to determine the winners.
But this year we added social media voting into the mix as well. Over 1,500 of you got involved and voted for your favorite businesses in our multiple categories. We were happily surprised by the number of people who voted. And your votes did matter. Your votes were factored into our “judges’ rubric” to help determine the winners.
But we decided that with all that community input, we couldn’t just have your votes be part of the determining process. We decided that we needed a “People’s Choice” award this year, that was solely determined by your votes. With that said, I am happy to announce that our first-ever CBAD People’s Choice Award Winner is Handel’s Ice Cream.
Handle’s has been in existence since 1945, but they just opened a shop here in our Village about one year ago. They were a CBAD finalist for New Business of the Year. I know many of you may have voted for them because they make amazing hand-made ice cream every day at their location. But they caught our attention and became a finalist because they give back to the community in such a major way. In their short time, they have supported schools, fire fighters, police and countless other local nonprofits and charities. They truly are looking to be imbedded in the community for the long haul. Those are the kind of “do gooders” that we want in our community, and that we want to celebrate here at the Chamber. So check out their video on our Carlsbad Chamber YouTube channel. And let’s keep on keeping on when it comes to doing some good. #CarlsbadStrong