CANNA PROVISIONS NAMED 2023 CORPORATE CITIZEN OF THE YEAR BY LEE CHAMBER OF COMMERCE  

Award marks the first time the 100-year-old chamber has ever voted for a legal cannabis company for the award.

Chamber hails Canna Provisions positive impact on the local community as a public steward for good business in the Berkshires.

Canna Provisions, Massachusetts’ most award-winning, independent woman-owned legal cannabis dispensary and home to Smash Hits cannabis, has reached a groundbreaking milestone by being voted by the Lee Chamber of Commerce as Corporate Citizen of the Year for 2023. It is the first time the nearly 100-year-old Chamber has voted for a cannabis company for the award.

“This is a monumental achievement for us not only as a small business in the Berkshires, but as a devoted Lee, MA based cannabis company,” said Canna Provisions CEO Meg Sanders. “We are continually seeking ways to vote with our dollars, and to demonstrate how legal cannabis companies not only can thrive in towns that support them but can prove to be a model business focused on the business and quality of life health of the communities we serve.” 

The Corporate Citizen of the Year award recognizes a local corporate citizen whose generosity in charitable giving tremendously impacts the region being served. The Lee, MA community is a generous one, and the Chamber considers it a privilege to recognize companies whose charitable work makes our community a better place to live, work, and serve. 

“With prior experience in Colorado, CEO Meg Sanders and Erik Williams knew better than almost everyone that bringing their business into a small New England town would be controversial and feared by some. But they also knew that public opinion is heavily on their side,” said the Chamber in a statement before the award ceremony on Tuesday Nov 6 at Greenock Country Club in Lee. “The bottom line for Lee is that Canna Provisions has allayed many fears of residents. The company has been a model of corporate citizenship in our town.”

Reasons listed for voting Canna Provisions as Corporate Citizen of the Year 2023:

• COO Erik Williams making exceptional efforts to work on public safety issues with the town, and being a source of positive marketing ideas for the town. 
• When it came time for Canna Provisions to make a large payment for community impact in 2021, their record was spotless and local police and elected officials had to admit that the company had successfully policed itself (there was no community impact) and the local Selectboard waived the fee, saying that “perceived fears” in lee had never materialized. 
• Impact fees paid in 2019 helped to support a resource officer in local schools, a public safety feasibility study, winter maintenance on the street where the Canna Provisions shop sits, and payment for safety devices at town crosswalks. 
• Canna Provisions enlivened the town with major support for Lee Gateway Jazz Weekend. 
• The company provides free sponsored live music at the Locker Room Sports Pub in Lee, and chamber projects such as Founders Weekend events and town beautification initiatives. 
• Canna Provisions has generously supported the Berkshire Humane Society, and 1Berkshire who has teamed with Canna for its entrepreneurial meetings.

“Canna has simply reached out to Lee organizations and businesses without waiting to be asked,” the Chamber said. 

The mission of the Lee chamber is ostensibly to promote the town not only as a vacation destination, but also as a vibrant business community supported by an engaged and committed citizenry while “supporting our local business owners, artisans, and visitors alike as well as preserving our robust sense of community and small-town values.”