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closeGig Harbor Guide: Have you chosen your three local businesses?
Laureen Lund
guest columnist
Which three locally owned businesses would you hate to see close? Which three would you miss if they were gone?
Think about them. Stop in, say hello. Pick up a little something that makes you smile. That’s what keeps them around, after all.
The Gig Harbor Historic Waterfront Association has launched a new way to help save our local businesses: The 3/50 project. It’s about local residents who choose to make a difference.
This concept started last March in Minneapolis and has generated a grassroots consumer movement in local shops, from New Jersey to Arizona. Some small businesses are claiming that the posters and fliers that promote the 3/50 approach have saved their businesses, or at least boosted their business with double-digit increases in revenue and a strong local following.
I’ve been preaching this message for years, but Cinda Baxter, the creator of the 3/50 Project, has found an incredible way to make this approach simple and doable.
Choose three businesses you want to see survive, and spend at least $50 each month at those three businesses. Fifty dollars total, or at each business, if you can.
That’s all it takes. A commitment to help save the “brick and mortars this nation was built on.”
Merchants in the historic downtown waterfront district are embracing the concept, and I encourage our residents to do so, as well.
Did you know that, for every $100 spent in an independently owned store, $68 returns to your community? At a national chain store, only $43 stays here. Spend your money online, and virtually nothing comes home.
During this recession and in our changing world economy, we can truly make a change by committing to make a difference in our own community, one business at a time.
Now is not the time for apathy. Now is the time for action.
Choose three. Spend $50. Bring $68 back to the community for every $100 spent.
Be the One. Learn more at www.the350project.net.