PAYING IT FORWARD

Pay it forward. That’s not just a movie from 2000 with Helen Hunt and Haley Joel Osment. Nor is it just a saying about doing kind acts for other people. At the Coeur d’Alene Casino Resort Hotel it’s a philosophy that drives the entire operation. While the tribe’s enterprises are an economic boon for itself and its members living on and off the reservation, they also provide a key boost to the North Idaho and Eastern Washington region.

In 1993, when the tribe’s original bingo operation opened, there were fewer than 100 people on staff. Now, 30 years later, that number is roughly 800. The economic spillover from that level of employment has ripple effects beyond the reservation.

“Truly, one of our core values is that we are about giving and helping. We’ve always been taught and encouraged to give back,” says CEO Laura Penney. “The casino would not be here without the community.”

Giving back to the community — the larger regional one that includes Spokane, Coeur d’Alene and the surrounding area — involves that concept of pay it forward.

As the casino-resort operation has grown in the past decades, so has the tribe’s economic impact. Expanding the hotel and adding a premiere golf course next to the casino boosted tourism. A 2014 University of Idaho study found the tribe’s overall economic impact (including business and government functions) for the region was over $330 million per year.

More recently, the tribe’s push to reopen the casino relatively early in the COVID-19 pandemic led to more people with steady jobs. No staff were laid off during that initial six-week closure, meaning people had guaranteed income in a time when millions of people across the country suddenly had none.

Six weeks after shutting down in March 2020, the tribe reopened the casino with strict safety precautions that required masking inside and temperature checks at the door. It was the first in the country to reopen, setting a standard for how to keep business operations going while implementing health measures.

“I know the importance of generating the revenue from the [gaming] machines for the broader community. We’re responsible. We knew we had to do it in a safe way,” Penney says.

Being the first casino in the country to reopen in 2020 meant the tribe could pay it forward. It did so in the ensuing weeks by launching a money giveaway program with that very title.

While thousands of people in the region were still laid off, with many businesses still closed or seeing significantly fewer customers, the tribe’s Pay It Forward program kicked into full gear. Partnering with radio stations owned by Stephens Media Group to publicize it, staff members went around the region with that pay-it-forward philosophy in mind. People at gas stations received free gas. People in line for coffee got free coffee. People getting lunch or groceries got their food paid in full. In each case, the message was the same: Don’t pay us back; pay it forward down the line.

The tribe spent $20,000 on the program in those first few weeks after the casino reopened.

That was nearly three years ago, a time when the future of jobs and the economy seemed very unclear. What’s clear now is it’s a philosophy — and program — that’s here to stay. In both 2021 and 2022, the Pay It Forward program gave away $31,000 in May.

This May, three years after being the first casino to reopen during a time of great uncertainty, the tribe will continue that program and positively affect the Inland Northwest region — as it has for 30 years. 