Spotlight on Small Business

Each year, we have the opportunity to meet with some incredible people and it’s exciting to be able to celebrate a few of them with awards during Bridges to Better Business. We can't wait to share with you all the exciting things that have been accomplished by our local small business owners this year. But until we make those announcements - Congratulations to the 2024 winners honoured at our event!

Elgin County Small Business Award – Burke’s Produce
St. Thomas Small Business Award – Steelhead Food Co.
St. Thomas Economic Development Award – Impressions Printing
Elgin County Economic Development Award – Guenther Homes
Libro Small Business Award – Sparta County Candles
Downtown St. Thomas Award – Suzanne Faris
Inspirational Entrepreneur Award  – Genevieve Kroeker, Seed Confections
Under 40 Award – Amber Henry, At Your Bake and Call
Starter Company Plus Award – Wing Boyz
Summer Company Award – Em’s Jams
Promising Start-Up Award – Lake House Books
Lifetime Achievement Award – Howe Family Farms
Horton Farmers' Market Award - Our Fields

Congratulations to the 2024 Small Business Award Recipients

Event Photos by Establish Media

Thank you to our 2024 Event Partners!

Get ready for an unforgettable celebration on September 26 at the Elgin County Railway Museum! The annual Bridges to Better Business event is back, and it's going to be a fantastic evening of local food, fun, and festivities, spotlighting the amazing small businesses of Elgin County and St. Thomas.
Our small businesses are the heartbeat of our community.

Despite the hurdles of small business, these resilient entrepreneurs have tackled every challenge with grit and determination, all while continuing to serve and delight the community.

And the community? You've shown up big time, providing the support and encouragement that keeps our local businesses thriving.

We want to shout out a massive THANK YOU to our incredible community of Elgin County and St. Thomas for your unwavering support. And to our small business heroes, we see you, we appreciate you, and we're here to celebrate your hard-earned victories.

To stay in the spirit of celebration, we are thrilled to welcome renowned Canadian musician, Steven Page to the stage following the presentation of our Small Business Awards. Steven's distinctive voice and music is sure to be an incredible cap on an incredible celebration!

As trusted advisors in the local business scene, we are bursting with pride at what we can achieve together. Bridges to Better Business is our chance to come together, celebrate our collective successes, and have an absolute blast.

Don't miss out – mark your calendars and join us for a night of joy, community, and celebration!

 One of the most exciting elements of our annual Bridges to Better Business is the opportunity to highlight local food. We are absolutely THRILLED to be working with local businesses to bring you a TASTE of Elgin County and St. Thomas in 2024!

We have such an incredible line up this year for our guests to enjoy! Sweet and savoury small bites that are sure to leave you wanting more - even once you are stuffed! *Conveniently* all of the participating businesses are local so you have the chance to visit them at their locations for more opportunities to enjoy their menu offerings!

The Food Showcase is included as part of your event ticket - no additional sampling tickets required. YUM!

Spotlight on our Entertainment

Steven Page`s distinctive and powerful voice is among the most instantly recognizable in popular music. He is a member of the Canadian Music Hall of Fame with former bandmates, Barenaked Ladies, the award-winning band he co-founded. As one of the principal songwriters and lead singer, Steven spent twenty years with the group, touring the world and selling millions of albums.
On September 30, 2022, Steven Page released Excelsior digitally - it`s his first solo album since 2018. The album`s 11 tracks were composed and produced entirely by Page, who co-founded the band Barenaked Ladies, before departing on a solo career in 2009. The lion`s share of material on Excelsior was "workshopped" for audiences on his wildly popular virtual concert series Live From Home that Page conducted via Zoom from his home near Syracuse, NY throughout much of the season of COVID isolation.

Thousands of fans throughout the world have tuned in to more than 90 episodes of Live From Home that are now also available through Patreon. The Excelsior track titled "Zoom" is, in fact, the album`s first single.

While Page played most of the instruments heard on Excelsior, other musicians participating include Craig Northey (guitar, vocals) and Kevin Fox (cello, vocals), members of the Steven Page Trio, his touring ensemble who are well known to Live From Home viewers for their ability to accompany Page from remote locations. Also heard on Excelsior are Doug Elliott of the Odds (bass), as well as Joe Pisapia (pedal steel), who had been a member of Guster and has both backed and produced k.d. lang. Steven`s brother Matthew Page guests on drums.

Once the Canada-US border re-opened, Page was able to complete Excelsior at his Fresh Baked Woods (FBW) studio in Blackstock, Ontario with some of the basic tracks recorded in the Upstate New York basement from which Live From Home originates most Saturdays. FBW is the same facility where several Barenaked Ladies albums, including Barenaked For The Holidays were recorded.

​Seven of the 11 tracks comprise a thematically linked song cycle that Page characterizes as "a suite of songs tied into what we`ve been involved with over the last ten years." These will occupy sides A and B of the 2 LP version of Excelsior when it is released next year along with the unrelated additional four songs ("gifts with purchase," Steven jokes) to be found on side C of the second LP. Side D will be silent and occupied by an etched graphic. "So you have two buckets of songs, so to speak. One speaks to an ‘outer life` — bigger picture stuff.

The others are largely about our very online existence and isolation we`ve all experience. It`s about all of us who spend too much time online. "The songs on sides A and B are, in some way, an overview of humanity`s plight as reflected in the struggles of the individual. Says Page, "I don`t want to make it totally prescriptive as in ‘this is how you should hear it,` but you might want it to apply it to your own lives if you feel so moved."

​"Feel" takes place at a funeral and deals with loss and grieving, a church choir plays inside the mourner`s head while "What Will I Do Now" is about learning to live with loss. "Human Doll" imagines a world where the ideal partner can be acquired by mail order and shipped to one`s door, the outcome of which is equally lonely and troubled as our current reality.

 "How Much Is Enough" that had been set to debut but was postponed due to COVID19 as part of Here`s What It Takes, the musical Page wrote for the 2020 Stratford Festival in Ontario."Look To the Stars" is a musical contemplation of what might be "bigger than us" and beyond our ability to understand. Page describes "Infinitely Light Years" along these lines: "In my mind we`re floating through space . . . it`s a duet with myself but imaged as between two separate people, a kind of quantum entanglement. It asks if it`s possible that we`re tied to somebody else who we don`t even know." 
That`s followed by "Safe" in which one member of a couple explains the benefit of boundaries Page suggests it`s "a plea for time and letting people set their own space." In more than one way it calls back "Feel," the opener. The free-standing songs on side C include "Xylorimba," conjured up for a special episode of Live From Home that called for Steven to perform 26 songs, each starting with a different letter of the alphabet.

For Live From Home A to Z, Steven had 25 letters covered with existing repertoire, so he commissioned himself to write a song titled with a word starting with ‘X.` He chose an arcane musical instrument that he calls a "the oddball child of a xylophone and a marimba" popular 90+ years ago and not often spoken of or played in more recent times. The song addresses that oversight, both in a titular and musical sense. The song "Zoom" is paradoxical for Page to have created, as he is something of a skeptic.

"There`s a point of view that we`re supposed to believe that technology somehow makes our lives worse. During the pandemic Zoom did what it was supposed to do so you gotta hand it to them." "The Golden Age of Doubling Down," is focused on "our desire to be cruel to each other," but is musically quite upbeat. There's also the self-deflating "Something About Me," which Page characterizes as "a personal song about my own tendency to make everybody else`s problems about me. People`s sense of empathy is defined by their own ego. I like to point fingers at myself, not at other people."

The album`s title, taken from the state motto of New York that relates to a Canadian living there and unable to go back to his native land for more than a year and half to see his parents or kids. Page, who was born in Scarborough, Ontario and inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame in explains, "I was kind of stuck here (Manlius, NY) and, in essence, became a true New Yorker. The state`s vaccine passports are called Excelsior Passes and we reflect the slogan`s ‘onward and upward` meaning in the album`s artwork."

Beyond Live From Home and the new album, Page was commissioned to write "Canada Loves You Back" on the occasion of Ryan Reynolds being given the nation`s 2021 Governor General`s Performing Arts Award. In a Tweet seen by almost 4 million, Reynolds referred to Page as "a friend and a legend" and thanked him "for wasting this amazing song on me."