New app designed to help Mat-Su residents find community events

WASILLA, Alaska (KTUU) - There’s always something going on in the Matanuska-Susitna Borough, especially now that the holiday season is in full swing. The timing couldn’t be better for one Wasilla resident to release a new app that keeps track of all the events taking place in the Valley.

“The only way that you see events is you just scroll and scroll and scroll,” app developer Makayla Gallagher said. “I just wanted to make it a little bit easier for people to access that information.”

The new mom and lifelong Alaskan created MatSu Events and Food Trucks, a free-to-download and use application that puts all those bazaars, craft fairs, and tasty trucks in one place. Social media is a great resource to connect, however, there is something to be said about event pages getting lost in the shuffle. Oftentimes, users only see event pages that are sponsored or have been interacted with by a mutual friend.

“What I’ve heard from so many different people is that they only see the event after it’s happened,” Gallagher stated.

The app is up and running and currently available for download on app stores. Users can choose whether to create an account or interact with it as a guest. Events are separated into categories, such as adult events, children’s activities, family-friendly events, and food venues. Account holders get the added layer of being able to mark favorite festivities of interest and can even set to receive push notifications as reminders.

It’s a valuable solution for those who tend to lose track or miss out completely, on events buried by the endless stream of online calendars.

Gallagher said it was important to her that Mat-Su residents know when and where these community-based events are happening so they have the opportunity to experience them.

“Going into the wintertime, it’s really hard,” Gallagher said. “A lot of times we want to get out of our house and we just don’t know what’s going on so I just want to be able to help provide that.”

So far, Gallagher has seen over 700 downloads since making the app available to the public. Eventually, she will be charged to keep the app operating but she plans to offset those costs by adding advertisements instead of charging users.

“I plan to never make it a subscription for businesses or any users,” Gallagher stated. “I want this to be a free app for people because I think it’s really important to keep the community together.”

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