Merchants Launch 'Shop Local' Movement
May 15, 2012
(News Release) VICTORIA — Victoria-area business owners have joined forces to promote locally owned and independent businesses — keeping the local economy vibrant in more ways than one.
Founding member Gayle Robinson, of Robinson’s Outdoor Store says, “Just a small shift in spending at locally owned businesses can have a compounding effect keeping dollars in our community, creating jobs and so much more.”
“There seems to be a real appetite to support locally owned enterprise with the local food movement being a great example of this,” says Elizabeth Cull, former finance minister, owner of Dig This, and founding member of Shop Local Victoria.
The group is sharing its top seven reasons to shop local to inspire locals and visitors alike to shop local:
- Put Your Money Where Your Heart Is. Support your friends, neighbours and yourself. Invest in our community; help create a stronger and healthier Victoria keeping our money here.
- What Goes Around Comes Around. Two or three times as much money spent stays in the local economy when you buy goods and services from locally-owned businesses.
- Community Sustainability. Local stores help sustain vibrant, compact and walk-able downtown centers – which in turn are essential to reducing sprawl, vehicle use, habitat loss and pollution.
- Keep Our Community Unique. One-of-a-kind businesses are an integral part of the distinctive character of Victoria.
- Create Collective Prosperity. Locally owned businesses invest more in local labour, pay more local taxes, spend more time on community-based decisions and create local events. In doing so, they create more opportunity for all of us here in our community.
- Local Owners Care About Victoria. Local business owners live in and love Victoria. They are less likely to leave and are more invested in the future of our whole community.
- Give Back and Take Care. Local business owners make more local purchases themselves. Locally owned companies and employees are statistically more likely to give to local charities.
The organization is made up solely of volunteers who are local business owners. Founding member Brian Henry, of Ocean River Sports says, “I am excited to be a part of such an amazing movement as Shop Local Victoria as I see investing back in our own community as such an important part of a positive and healthy future for Victoria.”
The official launch of Shop Local Victoria will take place Tuesday, May 22, in the Veneto bar at Hotel Rialto. Local business owners and people interested in supporting the movement are invited to attend to find out more about the organization and to hear Mayor Dean Fortin declare the first of many exciting Shop Local Victoria events to come.