Chaffee event center signals new beginning

A Chaffee couple has converted an old newspaper office into a community event center.

Stevie Williams and her husband, Jake, plan to host birthday parties, baby showers, weddings and more at The Signal Event Center, 113 S. Main St. in Chaffee.

The event center will open Wednesday, May 1, though rentals are currently being accepted.

"We both grew up in Chaffee, me and my husband, and there's not really a place there for events for the community," Williams said. "We like to give back to the community as much as we can and spend time with our family, so it was kind of a no-brainer."

The 2,150-square-foot building served as the home of the Chaffee Signal newspaper. The Williams acquired it in 2021.

"We had somebody come in and redo everything in it, and my husband, he's put several hours himself working on it," Williams added.

The couple kept the same brick from the 1920s, and plans to make a mock newspaper sign to display in the building, but everything else was built from the ground up.

Having both been flight attendants in the past, the Williams attended various functions at similar event centers worldwide.

"We got to see a lot of different places, so it was really important to us to put something in our community where people could come to functions like that," Williams said. "... We want people to get their families to come down and hang out and enjoy time together."

Both Stevie and Jake Williams come from large families and will host some family gatherings of their own there.

One community event Williams said she was excited for is a Christmas festival with a visit by The Grinch and breakfast for families.

"Christmas is very important to my grandparents and me, and I get to host those events now. I'm really excited," she said.

Williams said she wants to be as open to the public as possible and that people can still book events even if the center doesn't have the exact package they're looking for.

"If we don't have something that they're looking for, they can still reach out to us and see what we can do," she said.

Rentals may be made at http://thesignaleventcenter.com.

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