Meaford’s Chamber of Commerce and Rotary Club collaborated on Saturday for the 18th Annual Community Awards gala.
The Meaford International Film Festival captured the Tourism Award.
The Labour Day Weekend event marks its 10th anniversary in 2016.
Featuring four films, four dinners and four parties at Meaford Hall, the event relies heavily on between seventy and eighty volunteers.
Meanwhile, Bill Monahan of HomeBUTTONS won the Customer Service Award in a crowded field of nominees.
Monahan told the audience that Meaford is a place where your friends become your customers and your customers become your friends.
E-&-R Bulk Bin won the Most Improved Business Award.
Brian Renken received the Peter Francis Memorial Award for lifetime achievement in community development by a volunteer for his work with Meaford General Hospital.
Nancy Ellis of Simply Unique Flowers and Gifts was honoured as Business Owner of the Year in Meaford on Saturday. There were a total of five nominees in the category.
Nominators said that Nancy gets behind every good thing that goes on in the Town and many lives have been brightened by unexpected floral tributes.
Ellis also accepted the Youth Citizen of the Year for her daughter Haley Fawcett.
She received the honour from the Meaford Rotary Club for being one of the most valuable volunteers for the Terry Fox Foundation in Meaford.
Brian and Susan Adamson shared the Rotary Citizen of the Year Award for their many years of work recruiting doctors and developing Meaford’s Medical Clinic.
The Special Merit Award was accepted by Mary Bryant on behalf of Second Harvest, a volunteer organization that last year distributed a thousand pounds of Meaford-grown apples, pears and plums to school lunch programs and Meaford’s food bank.
James Macintosh of Duxbury Cider Company won the agri-business category.
He told the Chamber of Commerce audience that agri-business is key to Meaford’s economy and there are still many product development and marketing opportunities to be exploited.
Albert McLean of Irish Block received the Chamber’s first Farmer of the Year Award for his contributions to agriculture and rural living.
The Ontario Federation of Agriculture assisted the Chamber in developing criteria for the new award.