Chamber of Commerce announces Leadership class this afternoon

20 Poncan’s have been selected to participate in Oklahoma’s third oldest community leadership program, Leadership Ponca City. And today the class meets their peers and dives right into leadership training. These 20 individuals were nominated, filled out applications and were finally interviewed. Chamber of Commerce President, Rich Cantillion said they had to narrow the 25 applicants down to 20 for this Chamber program.

" Every month they’ll learn some aspect of doing business, living and enjoying Ponca City," Cantillion said. "One month they’ll learn about the city of Ponca City, then they’ll learn about education, they’ll learn about Kay County government, they’ll learn about social services, so there’s all kinds of different days where they’ll spend nine different sessions."

Names of the selected Poncan’s have not been released yet. We will have the list of the selected participants this afternoon, after their luncheon.

During the classes time in the leadership program they will also agree on a service project. All the service projects are based on a local need.

“ For example last year on social services day the class realized at the Mission there is a need for a commercial dishwasher and they thought, wow we could do that," Cantillion said. "They had the Burger Cookoff Challenge to raise money for the mission. They ended up raising so much money for that project they ended up not only getting a dishwasher for the mission, but also new dishes and all the things that come with that. So, that was incredible and that was just a need that the class saw during the year.”

Cantillion said this class makes a profound impact on the community outside the program. A couple years ago the Chamber was asked to research how engaged Leadership Ponca City alumni were in the community. That research showed 80 percent of alumni were involved in different organizations and volunteer work.