[Vision2020] Buy Local Moscow PrizeCard Kick-Off, October 15

[Bill London]

Family Fun at Buy Local Moscow PrizeCard Kick-Off







Free family fun will fill Moscow's Friendship Square at the Buy Local Moscow PrizeCard Kick-Off on Thursday, October 15, beginning at 5pm. Admission to the event, children's activities, and live music from the Sesitshaya Marimba Band will all be free.




The festival will launch Buy Local Moscow's PrizeCard shopping game. At the Kick-Off and by visiting participating locally-owned businesses, shoppers can pick-up their own PrizeCards and begin gathering stamps on those PrizeCards. After gathering stamps from a dozen local businesses, shoppers can then redeem those cards for the initial prize of a Buy Local Moscow reusable shopping bag. Then all the redeemed PrizeCards will be entered in the grand prize drawing on December 10. The 5 grand prizes each contain $300 in gifts from Buy Local Moscow merchants.




As part of the Kick-Off fun, participating downtown merchants will be staying open late that night, offering sales and refreshments. The downtown gallery, 2 Degrees Northwest, will sponsor an opening reception for watercolor artist Victor Andres of Moscow from 5pm to 8pm.




In Friendship Square, the free children's activities will include harvest-themed events like apple-bobbing and grape-stomping and will be coordinated by Whitepine Montessori School staff.




More than 100 locally-owned independent Moscow businesses have joined Buy Local Moscow since the organization was formed in 2006. The PrizeCard promotion is funded by the participating merchants with grant support of $1,500 from Buy Local Moscow members Tri-State, the Moscow Food Co-op, and NRS. 




The mission of Buy Local Moscow is to showcase and to support the locally-owned independent businesses of the community. More information is on the website, www.buylocalmoscow.com


Recent research shows that locally-owned independent businesses form the core of a sustainable community. Moscow continues to be a vibrant community because these businesses reinvest their profits locally, donate consistently to local programs, maintain diverse product choices, and strengthen Moscow's unique character. Increasing sales at locally-owned businesses keeps more money circulating within the community (the money does not flow to corporate administrators and stockholders, but instead is spent for local products and services), and increases the number of jobs available to local residents. 




Here are just two examples of that research. In a 2008 study of the Grand Rapids, Michigan, area, (http://www.civiceconomics.com/localworks/), researchers discovered that if just 10% of the purchases by the 600,000 local residents shifted from corporate or franchise retailers to independent businesses that 1,614 new jobs would be created. In a 2003 study from Maine (http://newrules.org/retail/midcoaststudy.pdf ), researchers found that three times as many dollars spent in locally-owned businesses circulated within the community in comparison with dollars spent at corporate retailers. The same study showed that local businesses donated four times as much to local charities as corporate retailers. Many other similar studies, as well as books and magazine articles on this topic, are available through the American Independent Business Alliance (http://www.amiba.net/ ).









-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mailman.fsr.com/pipermail/vision2020/attachments/20091003/9845bcac/attachment.html