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| December 2008 A Campaign Kick - Off Make a Pledge $ Buy Local $ by Dinah Urell This year, 73 alternative weeklies across the nation(including the Eugene Weekly) are participating in a ‘buy local” campaign. Organized by the Association of Alternative News Weeklies (AAN) and in conjunction with national sustainable oriented alliances, the synergized project is asking its readership to pledge to spend $100 shopping at locally-owned independent businesses this holiday season. The project is based on data showing that money spent in locally owned businesses tends to stay in the area and circulate through the community, increasing economic activity. Economists call this the “multiplier effect.” “If every one of the 17.5 million readers of these weeklies were to spend just $100 with local, independently owned merchants, the impact would be enormous,” says Jody Colley, publisher of the East Bay Express in Berkeley/Oakland and the originator of the project. In fact, a move that could pump more than $2.9 billion into urban economies during this recession-plagued season. Research has shown and according to AAN, “for every $100 spent at a locally owned store, $68 will stay in the community, while if that $100 was spent at a non-local chain, only $43 would stay in the community.” The $25 difference would circulate in the community, creating more jobs and economic stability. The “buy local” movement isn’t new; local campaigns exist throughout cities in the U.S. The Sustainable Business Network of Portland for example, has over 300 members. Two events that they have sponsored: a Buy Local Day, and the 100 Mile Thanksgiving Holiday Meal Challenge, where people were challenged to get their Thanksgiving dinner food locally produced, from within 100 miles of where they live. Similar to the new Columbia River Business Alliance, serving the communities along the Columbia, to which they are ramping up their efforts, with the broad mission to support sustainable economic development compatible with the region. Two key national organizations that support the “buy local” movement, Business Alliance for Local Living Economies (BALLE), and the American Independent Business Alliance (AMIBA),worked in conjunction to build the 2008 alternative news weekly campaign. “This is an incredibly exciting and unprecedented effort by the press to reach out and work with the local economic development community,” says Erin Kilmer-Neel, program officer at OneCalifornia Foundation, and active member in both BALLE and AMIBA. “In my mind, this can be a perfect partnership — local, independently owned publications helping other local indie businesses in their community toward positive economic change.” “When people choose to shop at locally owned, independent businesses in their communities, they are re-circulating dollars in those communities,” she says, “supporting more local jobs, keeping their neighborhoods interesting and unique and reducing their carbon footprints. Shop For Peace A Shop for Peace Day was chosen, over 70 participating businesses handed out silk-screend Shop For Peace shop bags and door magnets and pledged to donate 5% of sales that day to their specifc counties non-profit. The Shop For Peace concept strived to link coastal communities, to synergize local spending power and community needs. Unfortunatley, the Gale of 2006 hit just days before the Shop For Peace day, postponing it. However, businesses hung in there, many through days of closure in the height of the Holiday shopping season. Speaking volumes to what local business really means to the health of communities, almost all the businesses found a way to particpate and to make a donation. We are going to take up where we left off two years ago with the Shop For Peace Campaign. Now more than ever, its time to think locally, to begin to realize the potential of coastal communities working together. Holiday shopping, which plays a significant role in many local business revenues is an obvious time to emphasize “buying local” and the chamber groups in the region are also running a “shop local” campaign. MAKE A PLEDGE do it local
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HIPFiSH Monthly
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