A new tenant at the Innovation Center at Rogers State University has created an online community to serve as a hub for positive stories and insights about the Claremore community.
Operated by the brother and sister team of Amy Gordon and Robert Melton, MoreClaremore.com serves as a centralized location for community information, events and websites.
The site is based on open forum where community members are allowed to make contributions when they have something positive and relevant they want to share. The website will serve as a source of information for those who live, work or play in the 74017-74019 zip codes, which includes Claremore, Justus-Tiawah, Sequoyah and Verdigris school districts.
Under development for the past few months, the site officially launched on July 11.
“Last year, we hosted ZipperQ, a fundraiser for my boy who had been recently diagnosed with a rare disease and we were blown away by the response,” Gordon said. “That cold and rainy day in October showed Claremore is full of caring people looking for a sense of community. MoreClaremore.com is built on the concept that there are many good people in our community and we just need a common thread to link us together.”
Gordon praised the Innovation Center staff as a resource to them for launching their idea.
“Our family friend took us to the Innovation Center to learn more about what they do. Within a week, we were back in their office pitching the idea of a community hub,” she said.
The community hub will be managed by incoming RSU student, Anthony Wolfe. A recent graduate of Claremore High School, Wolfe said he is excited to oversee the online platform.
MoreClaremore.com established an office in the Innovation Center business incubator site earlier this spring as Gordon and Melton prepared for the site launch. They said the assistance from the Innovation Center staff has been valuable to them, allowing their team to focus their efforts on developing their site and building a content network for updating the site’s news and information.
“We are so excited by the response we’ve seen so far. In just a few days, our web traffic has tripled our expectations and the number of fans on Facebook has exceeded 1,000. We are thankful for our community’s support,” Melton said.
The RSU Innovation Center provides a business incubator space and support services for start-up and early growth companies in northeastern Oklahoma. The center also offers business counseling services and training for area entrepreneurs and expanding businesses.
For information about MoreClaremore, LLC, visit www.moreClaremore.com.