KittcoEvents.com is a community project aimed at bringing people together and connecting organizations and businesses with their audiences in Kittitas County. I, Lindsey Salmonson, am a social entrepreneur, biological scientist and the artist behind the kittcoevents site and Salmo Studios. I describe myself as a social entrepreneur to assert that my business practices and values aim to have social and environmental benefit. After moving here 6 years ago, I found myself frustrated and struggling to find my community, especially during and after the pandemic. I consider myself well practiced in finding my niche after moving around nine Western states and one Canadian province for school and work. It’s increasingly difficult to connect to people in a world surrounded by paywalls, private data mining and algorithms so I wanted a proven, straightforward platform with open access. Gatherboard, the platform you see here started as the event website for (one of) my hometowns of Missoula, MT. I’ve seen first hand how powerful this platform can be in bringing people together and connecting organizations and businesses with their audiences. Thus, I brought it here to bring together the residents and visitors of Kittitas County. My hope is that we all can strengthen our “third spaces”, find our common ground or, to borrow from Wallace Stegner, to create “a society that matches it scenery”. Please join me in strengthening our community connections across Kittitas County.