5 things Louisville should celebrate during Kentucky Derby season

With all the negative news swirling out there, let’s change it up and celebrate Louisville’s annual two minutes of fame. That’s right. It's Derby season.

This is the time of year when local businesses, elected leaders and all the residents of our city pull together to showcase everything uniquely Louisville. This is our time to shine, and there are plenty of successes to celebrate, starting with these high-fives:

1. No other city throws a party like Louisville, and no city’s residents are more welcoming of guests. More than 1.5 million residents and visitors will attend Kentucky Derby Festival events during the next few weeks. There will be fireworks, parties, mint juleps, and yes, horse races. Kudos to the thousands of volunteers who make the Derby Festival and Derby-season events possible. And let’s also say thanks for the millions of dollars invested by Derby event sponsors.

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2. Mayor Greg Fischer never passes up an opportunity to remind us that compassion is one of our city values. And nowhere does that value shine more than during the Give A Day Week of Service, which runs from April 13 to 20. Last year, Give A Day week set a world record of more than 205,000 volunteers acts, and the city has a goal to surpass those numbers in 2019.

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3. JCPS has been in the news a lot lately, but what hasn’t been covered is the unprecedented success of the Academies of Louisville program that is wrapping up its second full year. JCPS, KentuckianaWorks and GLI have created 131 new business partnerships covering 53 career pathways in 14 high schools engaging 17,600 students, making us a national model for career-focused learning. And we are fortunate to have a true Academies champion running JCPS, Marty Pollio.

4. With big-time support from the Kentucky Cabinet for Economic Development, the University of Louisville, Louisville Healthcare CEO Council, XLerateHealth, GLI and 1804 recently launched the Louisville Entrepreneurship Acceleration Partnership, or LEAP, to accelerate innovation and entrepreneurship in our region. LEAP embodies a 500% increase in spending on entrepreneurship in the area and presents the best opportunity ever to help make Louisville the nation’s next great tech town.

5. The Louisville Healthcare CEO Council and LEAP are sponsoring Caretech during Derby week. This is a first-ever global pitch competition to find innovative solutions for the $506 billion a year in informal or unpaid caregiving sector. Caretech promises to focus the attention of health care innovators everywhere on Louisville.

These are just a quick sampling of the countless successes happening around Greater Louisville. So, let’s take a minute — or better yet two minutes — to set aside the negative news reports and, in the spirit of Derby season, stop to sniff the (blanket of) roses. And, oh by the way, Derby also delivers a whopping $373 million in economic impact. That’s like hosting two Super Bowls, and we get it every year! Ah, the sweet smell of success.

Kent Oyler is president and CEO of Greater Louisville Inc.