by Kirby Lindsay Laney, 31 March 2016
On April 6th, from 4:30p – 7:30p, at Fremont Studios, the Neighborhood Expo returns – with more tables, more free stuff and more opportunities to meet your neighbors, and find out about resources and possibilities within our community.
Neighborhood Expo operates like a trade show, and a big block party for businesses and non-profits. It’s a safe, easy way to find community treasures hidden in plain sight, in one place, while taking a short tour ‘round the inside of the Studios.
“It’s a festive event,” observed Cheryl Shepherd, a local business owner and volunteer organizer of the Neighborhood Expo. “There are a lot of non-profits that I never knew about,” she observed about the Expo, “I discover businesses. You go and you create community. You talk with people you know, and find out who else is in your neighborhood.”
‘Biggest, Small Business Trade Show’
Billed as the biggest, small business trade show in North Seattle, the Neighborhood Expo gives us all a chance to meet businesses, non-profits and representatives from government agencies. It serves as a showcase for some of the best of the business organizations of the Fremont Chamber, Ballard Chamber, Green Lake Chamber, Queen Anne Chamber, Wallingford Chamber, PNA Business Group, and Greater Seattle Business Association.
For 2016, Neighborhood Expo organizers partnered with the charitable social club The World Is Fun (TWIF,) as well as the Seattle Good Business Network. Perhaps most importantly, the Tableau Foundation gave the Neighborhood Expo a grant of $3,500 to underwrite the entrance/table fees for non-profit organizations – that means attendees can find plenty of great causes, volunteer opportunities, and important local resources.
Shepherd is proud of the hard work the Neighborhood Expo Committee has done to grow the event. Between 2015 and 2016, they’ve nearly doubled the number of sponsors and tables displaying. Shepherd has been registering participants, and as the discount deadline to register businesses loomed, last February, “Over 24 hours, forty tables registered. I just watched them roll in,” she recently reported.
“I think, as a group, this committee is really intentional about getting [the Neighborhood Expo] out there. Talking. Marketing,” and registering participants. Shepherd lent her talents in many ways, including doing a lot of the secretarial and organizational work. She didn’t plan it that way. “It just kind of happened,” she said, “I’m organized. It’s just a role I fall in to.”
Shepherd also brought experience, since she started a trade show, back in Lisle, Illinois, “and I ran it for three years.” She also brought with her a background in the health industry, and with health fairs. Cheryl Shepherd, and her husband Dr. Ed Shepherd, relocated their Shepherd Family Chiropractic practice to Nickerson Street in June 2013. Immediately, they joined the Queen Anne Chamber, then the Fremont and the Wallingford Chambers, where she helped organize a health fair and came on-board to assist the Neighborhood Expo (then called ‘Cheers To Chambers.’)
‘To Educate People About Chiropractic’
Shepherd hopes her work on the Expo helps others, but also that it can promote the offerings available at Shepherd Family Chiropractic. “We want to let people know that we’re here, and to educate people about chiropractic and how we can help,” she acknowledged. At the 2016 Neighborhood Expo, Dr. Shepherd will make available a quick, surface electromyography scan that can help measure muscle tension and identify areas of imbalance for those interested.
Dr. Shepherd is a senior clinical instructor in the Activator Method chiropractic technique. “He’s really good at what he does,” Cheryl Shepherd praised, “with a great bedside manner.” Within their practice, the Shepherds have built a solid reputation on providing personal care, and “taking time to listen to patients, to look at their whole life, and try to discover where the stressors are,” Shepherd explained.
They can address a single specific spot, if that is all that is needed, yet as Shepherd explained, “patients will see improvements in other areas as well.” Treatments can address nervous system imbalances as well as bone alignments. Using the Activator Method allows, “a series of checks to find out what is misaligned, and what needs adjustment. With this Method, we only adjust what needs to be adjusted.”
The Activator scans are so non-invasive, and painless, that they are safe for infants, children, seniors and pregnant women. It means that Shepherd Family Chiropractic often treats whole families, something Cheryl Shepherd enjoys a great deal.
Fit In, By Fitting It In
Dr. Shepherd has been in solo practice since 1983, and the couple operated their first office in Illinois for seven years. They then moved to Winthrop, Maine, where they raised their two children, and built a successful practice over 23 years. Then both kids chose to attend Seattle Pacific University, and to marry and settle in the Pacific Northwest. So, Shepherd Family Chiropractic relocated for the third, and possibly last, time.
“This is the first time I’ve lived in a city,” Cheryl Shepherd said of the move, “and I wanted a city experience.” Still, “it took two years to find my way and feel like I fit here,” she said, although, “I never found the ‘Seattle Freeze’.”
Shepherd said she’s been able to find her way around our city, but the Neighborhood Expo has helped her personally, as well as professionally. “I’ve been introduced to companies that I discovered sooner because of the Expo,” Shepherd observed, “It’s a safe way to find out who is in your neighborhood.”
In some instances services offered at the Expo might not be ones you knew you needed. As Shepherd pointed out, representatives from the Seattle Department of Transportation will be at the Neighborhood Expo, sharing info on projects on-going and upcoming, to help people get around better this spring and summer. Also, Dignity Memorial will be displaying, for those who understand that we all, eventually, will need help making funeral arrangements as well.
On April 6th, meet Cheryl Shepherd, Dr. Shepherd, and all the businesses, non-profits and government agencies that will be displaying at the Neighborhood Expo. Entry is free, and the first 150 attendees will get a swag bag – in addition to the free samples, prizes, and general information available to everyone!
Take the time, and a few minutes, on a Wednesday afternoon, to find out more about our community, just by walking in to the Fremont Studios.
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©2016 Kirby Laney. This column is protected by intellectual property laws, including U.S. copyright laws. Reproduction, adaptation or distribution without permission is prohibited.