Aimee Rogers

The Board of Directors of the CHQ Chamber has selected Aimee Rogers of Forestville to receive the Pam Lydic Coalition Builder Award for 2025. Aimee Rogers is the founder and president of Imagine Forestville, a group of area residents that turned the dissolution of the former Village of Forestville into an opportunity to bring people together around common objectives.

Imagine Forestville is a not-for-profit established in 2018 and dedicated to the preservation and enhancement of the historic hamlet to have a lasting legacy and be a welcoming rural community. Since the founding of Imagine Forestville, the group – spurred on by Rogers – has been meeting regularly and has secured funding to develop a nature trail for hiking, a farmer’s market, and established a park with a picnic area. On a single day last year Imagine Forestville unveiled a new village clock, a Welcome to Forestville mural, and a repurposed historic horse trough that has created a garden spot in the hamlet.

Since 2024 Rogers has served on the Town of Hanover Board and the Chautauqua County Planning Board and is the liaison for the Town Planning and Zoning Boards. Working with the Chair of the Town Planning Board, they established a steering committee to update the Town of Hanover Comprehensive Plan, and this year they secured a $20,000 grant to pay for a consultant for that project. She also oversaw a Main Street grant process and worked with consultants on building studies in the hamlet of Forestville, and this past summer the first home in the Town of Hanover at 21 Pearl Street, Forestville, was placed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Aimee Rogers has also been active for many years in her church, St. Rose of Lima, which merged with Our Lady of Mount Carmel in 2018, and is the area liaison of the Pro-Life Diocesan Office. She is a social volunteer for the Forestville Fire Department, a member of the Fredonia Garden Club, and secretary for the Silver Creek Festival of Grapes. She is Assistant to the Area Director for the Board of Elections and has been a poll site coordinator for several years. She served as a 4-H leader for many years, on the 4-H Horse Committee for five years and still assists as a County 4-H evaluator. She served on the CHQ Chamber Board of Directors from 2023-24. Aimee and her husband have five children and nine grandchildren.

Pam Lydic was the first President and CEO of the Chautauqua County Chamber of Commerce, having pulled together a variety of smaller community business organizations in order to strengthen the whole, financially and programmatically. Following her untimely passing in 2012, the Chamber launched this award in her memory to recognize an individual who has worked hard to bring groups of people together around a common goal or objective to move the region forward in a positive direction.

The award will be presented at the CHQ Chamber’s Annual Meeting which will be held at noon, Friday, Dec. 12 upstairs at Wicked Warren’s in Jamestown. The keynote speaker will be Ronald Richard, the retired president and CEO of the Cleveland Foundation. The 2025 Annual Meeting is a celebration of 25 years of the Chautauqua County Chamber of Commerce and will also include the election of board members and officers for the coming year. The CHQ Chamber Annual Meeting is sponsored by Brooks-TLC Hospital System/Kaleida Health, County of Chautauqua Industrial Development Agency, Jamestown Community College, Media One Radio Group, the State University of New York at Fredonia, and Wicked Warren’s. Registration is open online now at www.chamberrsvp.org.