Our Daily Show Interview! The Wedge: Upcoming Events, Opportunities, and More!
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ALTON - The Wedge will host several events in the next few weeks to support business owners.
“The more people come in for these types of things, the more they’re going to see what value The Wedge can really add,” said Community Manager Stephanie Schrage.
On the first Thursday of every month, The Wedge and SIUE will host a networking opportunity. Titled “The Wedge + SIUE Partner Showcase & Networking Event,” this event encourages people to come out from 5:30–7:30 p.m. on Thursday, July 3, 2025, to tour The Wedge and make connections.
This month, you can finish the night by watching Alton’s Fireworks on the Mississippi display from The Wedge’s rooftop. While all of The Wedge’s events are free, registration is encouraged; click here to register.
From 4–6 p.m. on Thursday, July 10, 2025, business owners can attend “Accounting & Financial Planning for Entrepreneurs.” This hands-on session will go over bookkeeping, tax strategies and financial forecasting with advice from experts. Click here to register.
This event will be followed by “Legal Support for Small Businesses” from 3–4:30 p.m. on Monday, July 14, 2025. This free legal advice will connect small business owners with legal experts. Click here to register.
CEO J. Scot Heathman noted the benefits of attending workshops like this where business owners can learn more about financial and legal matters. He believes The Wedge serves as the perfect platform for these conversations.
“That’s what I like about a place like The Wedge,” he said. “If you have an idea for a business and you’re looking for that support, now you have a place with programming, with experts on site that you can come in and talk to and say, ‘Hey, can I get some legal advice or accounting advice?’ Whatever specialty we’re offering, there’s going to be something for small business because that’s a key economic driver for this community. We’ve got to help these folks develop their businesses so that they stay, they grow deep roots, and hopefully they grow and are hiring others.”
The Wedge will round out their July programming with “Community Collaboration Lab: Data and Storytelling” from 3–4:30 p.m. on Wednesday, July 16, 2025. Dr. Meg Smith, interim director of SIUE’s IRIS Center, will be on site to talk about how we use data to shape stories. Click here to register.
Heathman and Schrage explained that the data allows us to learn more about a “problem set,” and people can then tell a story using this data to create emotional appeals. Heathman believes these Community Collaboration Lab events encourage a healthy discourse.
“The whole point was to have a discourse — not a disagreement, not a debate, a discourse. The difference is, in a discourse, we are all listening to each other and respecting what we think we see in the data, and then we start talking about all kinds of ways that maybe we could tackle some things,” he explained. “These are tough problems we’re talking about in the community. Whether it’s hunger and food insecurity, housing, health and wellness, these are some of the biggest problem sets right now that everybody’s looking for an answer to. We want to help with that.”
To learn more about The Wedge’s upcoming programming, read this article on RiverBender.com. For more information about The Wedge, visit their official Facebook page or their official website at TheWedgeAlton.com.
