Stacie Blubaugh's family business was awarded Business of the Year.
After just one year in business, Main Street Scoops & Sweets won the business community’s top honor Saturday night for its role in helping to revitalize downtown.
The family-run ice cream shop won the Eudora Chamber’s Business of the Year award. Other winners were Laura Smith for Citizen of the Year and the Eudora Schools Foundation for Nonprofit of the Year.
Jason Musick said it’s important for the Chamber to recognize excellence.
“As we grow as a Chamber, it’s really important that we have that sense of community and we give ourselves the accolades that we deserve and we support each other,” he said.
Business of the Year
The Business of the Year award is a culmination of all the community has done to support Main Street Scoops & Sweets, owner Stacie Blubaugh said.
Chamber President Meagan Cox said the shop has been instrumental in creating community and giving back to Eudora. The team has appeared at community activities, fundraised for local organizations and hosted events to bring families out, she said.
“I think that the Blubaugh family is just one of those that they just kind of hold a special place in all of our hearts. They just have that spirit to be entrepreneurs in many different ways,” Cox said.
When starting the shop, the goal was to bring the community together, Blubaugh said. The family, formerly from Olathe, never planned on opening an ice cream shop when they moved to Eudora. But after talking to GW Weld and seeing his vision for downtown Eudora, it’s just what the family wanted to do.
The Blubaughs didn’t know what to expect, and just wanted to do something as a family, Blubaugh said.
Main Street Scoops & Sweets is also about bringing together other families and giving people a place to talk and enjoy each other’s company. She wants it to continue to be a place people come to talk, celebrate and just have a connection, she said.
“I just want people to come here and be able to just engage in and be together and then I love sitting down to visit with people and getting to know people in the community,” she said.
Winning this award, especially after only a year open, is special, she said.
“It just says a lot hopefully that we are making a difference as far as reaching out and bringing in families and making their special occasions even more special with ice cream, the cakes that Brooke makes,” Blubaugh said.
She said she doesn’t feel like this is something the family did on their own either and wouldn’t be possible without Eudora.
Citizen of the Year
Smith was shocked to learn she won Citizen of the Year. The idea never crossed her mind, she said.
The award means a lot to her, and it’s validating to see her time recognized, she said. It reminds her of the support system coming from the city.
Smith is involved with numerous area organizations and serves as Eudora’s community navigator. She started with Feeding Eudora and Little Free Libraries, but has also been involved with the Eudora Food Pantry, the Giving Garden and now leads an Engage Douglas County group in Eudora.
“She assists families who may be experiencing hardships,” Cox said. “She brings education to our community in so many different ways.”
She is reliable, trustworthy and able to assist families in a discreet way – something important in a small town, Cox said.
“Sometimes it’s not always easy to be like, ‘Hey, I need this help,’ and she makes it to where people don’t feel ashamed or any of that, you know, like they can really trust in her and get what they need when they need it,” Cox said.
The deeper she becomes intertwined with the community, the more projects she wants to get involved with, Smith said.
“Our community is amazing here, and I could not do this without them. I mean, I’ve often considered myself the puzzle piece, and that’s kind of my logo for navigation, and it’s true,” Smith said. “I’m one person. I can’t do all of that so it’s so nice to have this amazing community that, you know, has your back on all this stuff.”
She’s lived in the area for about 20 years and has experience working in the school district, so she has seen all the needs of this community firsthand, she said.
Her goal as a citizen and the community navigator is one and the same, she said.
“My goal, I think, as a citizen is to continue this unity and community,” she said. “I adore seeing our community come together to help others or just bond. I mean, just to bond and be together, and we’re very lucky that we have that kind of community.”
Her goal is to continue whatever she can to make possibilities applicable to everyone.
Her journey with organizations in Eudora started when she saw so many financial struggles within the community during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“I remember one day just bawling and just thinking, ‘I don’t know what I’m going to do, but I’m going to do something, because we can’t have that. That’s not OK. These are humans,’” Smith said.
What started as a diaper drive has turned into Smith having a role serving over 100 families in a year as community navigator between 40-50 hours a week.
Being able to help families in Eudora find resources for financial hardships, mental health needs, education and caretaking has made her feel grateful.
Nonprofit of the Year
It means a lot that the Eudora Schools Foundation received the Chamber’s first Nonprofit of the Year Award, Executive Director Shanda Hurla said.
“I think that’s just really kind of humbling that they would select us as the nonprofit and the community to think that they wanted to honor for the first time so that’s exciting to me,” Hurla said.
Since the foundation’s inception in the early 2000s, it has prioritized initiatives to get money into classrooms for teachers and to provide for students. The ways the foundation provides for families, teachers and students have changed throughout the years, but the goal has always been the same.
The foundation does everything from supplying funding for enrichment programs, new learning opportunities, mentoring programs, classroom grants for teachers and the annual give day.
Cox said the foundation is a great asset to the community and implements creative and fun ways to raise money for classrooms. She also said since 2006, the foundation has directed more than $600,000 directly into Eudora schools.
“The board is full of amazing volunteers who are parents, past school employees and alumni so you know that this organization holds a special place in each of their hearts,” Cox said.
Especially as education has changed so much since the start of the pandemic, the foundation is trying to cater more resources to making sure students are getting what they need, Hurla said.
“What we’re seeing in the education realm is that students are needing more of those hands-on learning opportunities. They’re needing more mentoring. They need more of those real world connections of meeting with employers, doing job shadowing,” Hurla said.
The foundation is always planning on what would take things to the next level to provide students a bright future, she said
The foundation is full of ambition for the future, but so is the community, and the amount of collaboration between area nonprofits makes it even more possible, she said.
“I think that, again, we’re not the only nonprofit here. And I think one thing that has worked really well is we have been able to be collaborative, and I think that’s kind of cool,” Hurla said. “I think that there’s a feeling of partnership in that way that may not exist in other communities.”
Reach reporter Sara Maloney at [email protected]
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