New app Welcome to Berkeley County, useful for everyone | Newspaper

MARTINSBURG – Welcome to Berkeley County is an app developed by the Martinsburg-Berkeley Chamber of Commerce, a hub for citizens, businesses, nonprofits and more.

It aims to help newcomers to the area understand what’s in the city and help businesses raise awareness and reach new people.

The app can be downloaded by scanning the QR code and swiping a smartphone camera over it and clicking on the link that appears.

Justin Henry, along with Panhandle Homes of Berkeley County, Inc. and Panhandle Builders & Excavating, Inc. and Treasurer of the Board of Directors of the Martinsburg-Berkeley County Chamber of Commerce, was one of the first members who thought of the idea of ​​the application.

“We had this idea of ​​a way to try to unify Berkeley County. There are a lot of new residents coming to the county or even people who have been here for a while who don’t know exactly how or where to go for certain resources. Instead of having to individually search for all the resources you need, such as where the parks and recreation are located, where the community parks are, how to register your car with the DMV, how to pay your taxes or where going to pay them, we thought it was a great idea to try and host this in an easy to use app that you don’t have to search or think too much about, ”Henry said. “There is a checklist for new residents. It continues to evolve and grow, but at this point we feel like we have something unique and valuable to the residents of Berkeley County. Not that the app covers everything, over time it might do just fine, but it gives you a good head start if you’re new to the area.

Tina Combs, president / CEO of the Martinsburg-Berkeley County Chamber of Commerce, said signing sponsors for the app include Berkeley County, CNB Bank, Convention and Visitors Bureau, Panhandle Homes , Social Connection Marketing & Videography and WVU Medicine.

“Thanks to these people, we were able to get together with Moises (Mendoza) to develop the application,” Combs said.

Moises Mendoza, of Social Connection Marketing & Videography, has developed five apps during his career, including the new Welcome to Berkeley County app. He said the new app offers an events calendar, business directory, coupons, live maps, weather and more.

“It’s great, because a lot of people are using social media to find information now, but there are still a lot of people who don’t have social media but almost everyone has a modern smartphone that can scan the QR code and download the app, ”Mendoza said. “We have received a lot of feedback that this is a useful resource. We have a Facebook group, Welcome to Berkeley County, where we ask community members what they want to see on the app. This is not the final version of the app. The app will always evolve and add new features. We just added the weather and live traffic maps.

Combs said that on Monday there had been 500 downloads of the app so far.

Henry said as the community continued to be interested in the app, the Martinsburg-Berkeley County Chamber of Commerce would be getting stickers of the QR code to download the app so businesses can put the stickers on their windows.