GREAT FALLS — A Great Falls woman is doing her part to help businesses impacted by COVID-19. Abby Anne owns Creative Elements Event Management and says she usually hosts vendor markets and events in person, but due to restrictions and closures, she’s found a way to feature small businesses online.
Anne says vendor markets are the only source of profit for many of the businesses she works with. Instead of having these businesses worry about learning new ways to market themselves online, She created a Facebook page called Virtual Market Vendor Events, where vendors can promote business on a weekly basis without having to worry about breaking any advertising rules.
“I had a little bit of an overwhelming flow of people getting a hold of me,” she said. “So I decided to do two events a week. Sometimes maybe only five vendors, sometimes there’ll be 30 people in there doing vending events. But it’s going to help them stay active.”
Anne says a lot of the vendors she features are local, with businesses from Great Falls to Bozeman to Missoula wanting to promote products.
She’s also working to host Facebook fundraisers on the page for businesses with no source of revenue. “Like a clothing business, they can’t do curbside,” she said. “The gyms, they can't do anything, they’re stuck. Salons, they have no way to do anything.”
