Message from the Richmond Hill BIA Chair

Hello and welcome to our website!
Our site is intended to highlight the many amazing businesses of downtown Richmond Hill and showcase all the hidden gems here in the heart of our Village. Like Richmond Hill itself, our business community is diverse, multi-cultural and yet incredibility united.
As a community, we all experienced the devastating effects of COVID-19 and the economic consequences of a global pandemic. Many small businesses ceased to exist over night and many people found themselves unemployed and in a place of great uncertainty.
With the help of all levels of government, family, friends and neighbours, we managed to put behind and survive the first wave of this horrible pandemic. Many of us were forced to restructure our lives, our habits and businesses, and essentially re-brand ourselves in order to come through successfully on the other side. We leaned more on our relationships and re-evaluated many of our priorities. In the end, many of us remembered that notions such as health, family, home and community meant more to us than certain other past values.
It is now more important than ever, that we come together as a community and to relish in the many wonderful things our great City and downtown have to offer. Our City and in particular downtown Richmond Hill has a wonderful array of entertainment, shopping, cultural destinations for people of all ages. It is imperative that we shop local and tap into the many wonderful local resources we have. It is time to show our local business community that we stand beside them and that together, we will not only survive this new way of life, but thrive like never before!

Raika Sheppard is the current Chair of the Village of Richmond Hill BIA. She is dedicated to strengthening the BIA business community and improving the vibrancy and beauty of historic downtown Richmond Hill.