It was back in February when officials at the Lynchburg Regional Chamber of Commerce first heard the bad news. CertifiChecks Inc. of Dayton, Ohio, the company that provided the chamber-sold community gift certificates to local businesses, was close to going under.
According to President Rex Hammond, almost $50,000 in gift certificates had been purchased from the chamber, many by local businesses and given as gifts to employees. When CertifiChecks entered bankruptcy in April, all those giftchecks became worthless.
Legally, the chamber could have just washed its hands of the mess, as the holder of the gift checks was beholden to CertifiChecks, not the chamber.
But that’s not what they did.
The chamber board believed strongly that it was morally obligated to make the situation right, and they did. The chamber has put up $50,000 of its own money to redeem the checks and issue replacement Chamber Checks. (This Friday, by the way, is the final redemption day; call Denise Rowland at 845-5968.)
No, they didn’t have to do, but the chamber’s leadership knew it was the right thing to do. Now that’s character.
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