Town kicks off Caledon Tour videos initiative as part of the Love Local Caledon campaign

By Rob Paul

Some residents may have noticed, following Step One of the provincial re-opening kicking off on Friday there was a gathering in front of Caledon Town Hall Saturday morning. They may have even heard the thunderous voice of Town Crier Andrew Welch as he made an announcement flanked by members of Council.

It was the official launch of the Love Local Caledon Tour videos project and Welch was joined by Mayor Allan Thompson and area Councillors Tony Rosa, Lynn Kiernan, Christina Early, and Nick deBoer. 

“For too long has casual travel by wagon been banned, today I invite you to jump on the Caledon bandwagon!” said Welch. 

The goal of the tour videos is for Rosa to show the community all the beauty, amenities, and business that they have in their own backyards to help motivate residents of Caledon to stay local.

“When I started my Love Local Caledon campaign to make people aware of businesses, one of the things I found was that residents would message me and tell me they didn't know some businesses I was spotlighting even existed in our community,” Rosa said. “That made me dig deep into this and it made me think if a person in Bolton doesn't know about a business here, then how do they know about the rest of the municipality? Geographically, Caledon is so large and divided into many different hamlets and villages.

“I'm not sure the majority or residents know what we have to offer, and I think it's important if we're going to focus on building unity to make sure everyone understands Caledon's makeup and what it offers the community. That's why we thought that we should not only spotlight the businesses, but the actual various hamlets and villages as well.”

Although attendance was limited due to COVID-19 restrictions, Bolton resident Frank Mattacchione—who has played a pivotal role in the Love Local Caledon campaign—and Amazon's Head of Communications Dave Bauer and Assistant GM Isabella Figueiredo were there in support.

Mattacchione had previously reached out to his contacts at Amazon in Bolton and the leadership team wanted to get involved, sponsoring a series of promotional videos that will spotlight independent local businesses across Caledon.

Now that businesses can begin to prep and plan to get back to normal, Mattacchione hopes the videos remind people that there are few things more important than working together as a community to rebound and even exceed where things were pre-pandemic.

“I think it's important as we come out of the lockdown that more of these events take place and we support our local businesses and people get out there [to] do what we can as a community,” Mattacchione said. “It's up to all of us to make Caledon the great place that it can be.”

The driving force behind the initiative has been Rosa who has been putting out Love Local Caledon videos for months on social media. The videos follow Rosa to various businesses in Caledon where he can show what they have to offer and speak with local business owners.

This was the next step in his plan.

“Above and beyond the opening, we visited six different areas of Caledon—it was the first group of six that we filmed,” Rosa said. “We were focusing mainly on the west side of Town for now and we'll be moving to the east side of Town on July 10 for additional filming. It went extremely smoothly, and we got everything we accomplished done and our goal is to start launching videos later this week with one to two per week. We want to try and have them run all summer long, so people have a chance to learn about their own municipality.”

The campaign started because Rosa wanted to ensure business owners could thrive in Caledon. Seeing how the community has embraced his efforts has only made him wanted to work hard and get more involved, especially with others stepping up to help.

“I've always been worried about business sustainability in my ward,” Rosa said. “I'd heard about failed businesses in Caledon and the Bolton area, and I was worried about businesses surviving prior to the pandemic. Once the pandemic came, I became extremely concerned. I felt with the stay-at-home orders and people being asked to stay in their areas, what better way to promote what's in our own backyards. The community has responded so well to it and the business owners as well.

“So many people tell me they're looking forward to my next video and that motivates me to continue with it. I really appreciated the support that Mr. Mattacchione showed as a business owner himself in town and he got involved and helped to solidify the sponsor…It's definitely a group effort and I've appreciated the involvement of the business community and other Councillors.”

Without Mattacchione stepping up for the community, the partnership with Amazon may not have happened and he credits Rosa for motivating him to get involved by showing going above and beyond to fulfill promises to the community is the best way to build trust in the Town.

When Mattacchione reached out to Amazon, Bauer says they knew it was the perfect opportunity to show Caledon how much it means to be a part of the community while also knowing how important it is to put faces to the company name and prove they're here to help through the rebuilding process. 

“We got involved because local council reached out to us and asked us if there's anything we could do to help support it and we jumped at the opportunity,” said Bauer. “We worked with Tony and Frank to bring everybody together and connect organizations with this great event. We thought it was just a great linkage between Amazon and the community. There's a lot of local sellers who sell through Amazon and we thought this was a great initiative to showcase what we can do to support the local community, not just from a business perspective, but from a profile perspective and particularly when it's such a tough time for businesses now.”

Bauer and Figueiredo hope to continue to be involved with the Love Local Caledon campaign beyond the video tour and get more members of the Amazon team out and about helping residents and business owners through sponsorships and volunteering.

“Showcasing that we are part of the community and a great driver of job creation, and a great driver of community is very important to us and we'll be doing it more under Isabella's leadership,” Bauer said. “We're going to be getting our people out and volunteering and making sure we're always present and supporting great events like this because it matters. Residents work for us at our facilities and they bring a lot of passion to their jobs, and we want to bring equal passion to the community through support. This is humanizing the company through our people. It's been a very busy time for us and we need to get out more and show that we're because that matters, and we care.”

Rosa may be at the forefront of the project and leading the videos, but he knew how important it was to ensure the Mayor, Councillors, and the Amazon representatives were there to show that it's a team effort in getting Caledon back on its feet. 

“The whole project is about building unity across the community and recognizing all that Caledon has to offer and that can only be done if we share that responsibility amongst the area Councillors,” said Rosa. “We can only showcase the entire municipality if we try to get everybody involved.”

Mayor Thompson knows with the impact of the pandemic as the community begins to open up again as vaccination numbers rise, that the Love Local Caledon campaign is going to be a key cog in rebuilding. 

“Helping our business and community partners recover from the tremendous impacts of the pandemic is a priority for Council,” said Thompson. “The Love Local Caledon campaign is one way we can build momentum and awareness in the community to both shop and love local.”

For more information on the work Rosa is doing for the Love Local campaign and to watch his videos visit his Facebook page (www.facebook.com/Tony-Rosa-Ward-5-Bolton-Area-Councillor-194134681250521/?ref=page_internal).