EATON — Downtown Eaton Inc., a non-profit corporation which looks to promote the development and revitalization of downtown Eaton, has launched its new website.

“We were wanting to expand and try to become more modern and we didn’t have the means to do that, and that’s where Opti-Vise stepped in,” Downtown Eaton Inc. President Chris Miley said.

Opti-Vise, an IT company in Eaton, provided the donation for Downtown Eaton Inc.’s new website.

“We’ve been in here since 2010, so we’re part of the downtown business community,” Opti-Vise President Kent Hamilton said. “We’ve been supportive of it before and were asked to contribute software for the membership, and so as an IT company, we wanted to support Downtown Eaton Inc. in terms of being able to modernize.”

The new website will help Downtown Eaton Inc. track memberships, promote downtown businesses and market upcoming events.

Despite being founded in 2002, this is the first website that Downtown Eaton Inc. has had, so these features of the new website will help them to further connect with the businesses that help support the non-profit and their mission to help the downtown area in Eaton.

“Downtown Eaton Inc. is a group of local people that like to contribute to the health and livelihood of the downtown businesses. Just because we say downtown, we don’t have boundaries that limit that,” Miley said. “If you’re an Eaton business and you approach us for some assistance that we can provide, we do that. Our boundaries have expanded from when it used to be just the downtown, four or five block area, to any new downtown business or existing business.”

For businesses looking to get involved with Downtown Eaton Inc., they can get involved by donating money to Downtown Eaton Inc. or participating in events such as Adopt-a-Pot, which places potted plants throughout downtown Eaton.

“If a business has something that they need help with, they can approach us or if we see a need as we’re driving through, we approach to see if we can do something about that,” Miley said.

Some upcoming events hosted by Downtown Eaton Inc. include their Old-Fashioned Downtown Saturday Night Car Show on Aug. 22 and the DEI Truck Show on Sep. 26.

“In about a month we’ll have a downtown car show that, if the weather and the virus doesn’t cancel, we will make some decent money on that and we put that back into the community through Shop with a Cop or the Thanksgiving donation,” Miley said.

Additionally, Downtown Eaton Inc. will host the annual White Christmas celebration at the Preble County Courthouse on Nov. 27.

More information can be found on their new website at https://www.downtowneaton.org/.