Stephanie Dolan

THREE PROFESSIONAL WRITING SAMPLES: STATIC MEDIA https://myhcicon.com/full-service-hotel-opens-in-plainfield/ Full-Service Hotel Opens in Plainfield By Stephanie Dolan The Embassy Suites by Hilton Plainfield Indianapolis Airport, 6089 Clarks Creek Road, celebrated its grand opening with a ribbon cutting ceremony that included a reception, tours of the property, a wine walk and dancing. “Seven years ago when I took this job the previous executive director brought me out to this piece of property and said someday we’re going to have a convention center here,” Plainfield Chamber president Brad DuBois said. “Well someday is here. We’ve got one now.” “This hotel is special because it’s the first full service hotel in the town of Plainfield and in Hendricks County,” the hotel’s general manager Brian Carey said. “We have 23,000 sq. ft. of meeting space, 174 rooms, a full restaurant and a full bar.” The hotel also includes laundry service, an indoor pool, a 24-hour fitness center and full catering for their banquet rooms. “We have a lot of big events coming up,” Carey said. “Including the Hendricks Regional Health Gala. It’s a great economic impact to the city of Plainfield.” Located only 25 minutes from downtown Indianapolis, the hotel also offers free shuttle rides to and from the airport. “This was an investment project that we decided was necessary for the life of the exit,” Jaime Bohler-Smith of Visit Hendricks County said. “We needed to make sure we had a full service hotel and conference center that allowed us to create a quality of place where people want to visit.  Therefore, you start building communities that people want to live in. What this did is create a catalyst environment for the hospitality industry. So we’re kind of really creating this hospitality corridor that will extend up through Avon and into Brownsburg. We’re really kind of looking at creating places and spaces that residents can enjoy so that they can have a better quality of life and they have more things to do right here at home.” Most of the time, when Embassy Suites and Hilton have come together, they’ve built a property from the ground up, as was the case for the hotel’s sister facility in Noblesville. “This project was actually a redevelopment project,” Bohler-Smith said. “It is a redevelopment and a new development – something we’ve needed for many years.” The hotel broke ground in April 2017. For more information, or to make a reservation, call-. https://ss-times.com/a-cup-of-chari-tea/ A Cup of Chari-Tea By Stephanie Dolan Along the Indianapolis Cultural Trail, at 647 Virginia Ave., sits a coffee shop that you may or may not have heard of. For 10 years, the Calvin Fletcher Coffee Company, owned by father and son team Doug and Jeff Litsey, has been serving its community… and they haven’t just been serving coffee. “We lived in the neighborhood at the time, and there wasn’t anything like a coffee shop in the neighborhood and we wanted a place where people could get to know us and people could get to know each other,” Doug said. “The idea that everybody would be welcomed was important. We wanted patrons to feel loved. We found a little spot in Fletcher Place and began to plan.” The shop opened Sept. 30, 2009. https://lemonwire.com/2017/11/03/hoppy-halloween-craft-beer-fest-pleasant-surprise/ Hoppy Halloween Craft Beer Fest a pleasant surprise By Stephanie Dolan When you go to an inaugural event (and if you’re at all realistic) you don’t always expect things to run seamlessly. There’s almost always some kind of unexpected last-minute hitch in the proceedings that either slows things down or brings the event to a momentary halt. This typically happens before things even really get started, so it’s not as noticeable as if – for example – you’re an hour into a “first-of-its-kind” brew fest only to have the power in the event space go out entirely. Yeah. Try stumbling your way out of a massive meeting hall along with 1,000 other “I’m not drunk – you’re drunk!” cranky, thirsty beer lovers. The point: it’s not always convenient – or even pleasant – but sometimes things just happen. Sometimes, the only way to learn how to pull off a great event is to keep tugging, so to speak, until issues just “give.” Sometimes that process takes a year – because planning for a new annual event takes at least that long in its inception and development- – and sometimes it takes a few years before all the kinks are worked out entirely. Whether by very thorough design, or simply happy accident, the inaugural Hoppy Halloween Craft Beer Fest, presented by Indiana On Tap, went off without any kind of hitch whatsoever… at least to the untrained eye. In spite of surprisingly frigid temperatures even for late October, the festival was packed and truly “hopping” as soon as the non-existent doors opened in the Claddagh parking lot at the Shops at Perry Crossing in Plainfield. Hundreds of craft beer lovers lined up at more than 25 brewery stalls ready for a sudsy taste of what the day had to offer. “It’s been really great, and the weather has not put a damper on the spirit of things at all,” Indiana On Tap founder Justin Knepp said. “We’ve already welcomed about 1,000 people.” While Knepp said he was a fan of each and every brewery on the blacktop, he did reserve a special place in his heart – – and his liver–for the most local of local breweries. “I love them all,” Knepp said. “But a local favorite is certainly Brew Link.” Brew Link is Plainfield’s first craft brewery and has been very popular with the locals and local travelers alike, who often come out from Indianapolis just for a pint of Plainfield’s best. Hoppy Halloween was conceived by Ruari Crabbe, co-owner of Plainfield’s Brew Link, and Plainfield Chamber of Commerce president and CEO Brad Dubois. The idea was turned over to Indiana On Tap, a craft beer media marketing and events company, for development and thus… Hoppy Halloween rose up like the Great Pumpkin (Ale) that was served in the Brew Link tent during the event. “We’ve handled every single detail of putting this together,” Knepp said. “We’ve been blown away by the interest. This is going to be an event that we plan on bringing back to Plainfield year after year.” DuBois added, “Ruari talked to me about it, and then we met with Justin. I wanted to start a craft brew festival a few years ago but never found the right venue.” Crabbe said he had also been wanting to put on this type of festival in Hendricks County for some time. “We approached Justin and here we are,” Dubois said. “These are the kinds of things that people want to go to.” Other participating establishments were Bier Brewery, Centerpoint Brewing, Daredevil Brewing, Metazoa Brewing, New Corner Brewing, Noble Order Brewing, Rock Bottom Brewery, Round Town Brewery, Taxman Brewing, Circle City Zymurgy, Rhoades Beverage, Deer Creek Brewing, Route 2 Brews, Garden Party Botanical Hard Soda, Mogul Vodka, Planetary Brewing, Cardinal Spirits, PRP Wines, Kind Kombucha and Chateau Thomas Winery. Yet, beer in its usual form wasn’t the only way for attendees to enjoy craft beer at the festival. “I’ve been baking with beer since 1998,” Laura Turvey of Tipsy Turvey Pubcakes said. “I love to make cupcakes. I have five of the breweries that are here today represented in the cupcakes I have for sale. Brew Link beer has been used in two cupcake flavors as well as in two different cookies.” Turvey said the craft beer movement has brought a lot of unique flavors to beer. “These are funky, crazy flavors that go along really well with cupcakes too,” she said. For more information on Hoppy Halloween, visit the website at hoppyhalloweenfest.com.