By: Olga Bof
I can’t help being a crusader for local shops – I was raised in one. From the time I was seven years old I worked in my parent’s store called “Quincallera Mariano” in Miami’s Little Havana after school and at weekends. The shop was a mini-Cuban version of a hardware or variety store carrying a bit of everything (pots & pans, record albums, toys, etc.).
Even though I needed a stool to reach the cash register, I learnt a lot of life’s lessons in that store and some of my fondest memories are of my time there. Fellow shopkeepers became like aunts and uncles to my younger brother and me. A fire once ravaged half our block, but everyone pulled together to rebuild. At the block party held when those stores re-opened everyone brought pot-luck dishes. I can’t imagine that happening at a strip or shopping mall.
Having lived in Paris for a year and London for nearly ten years I know the utter joy of being able to find whatever I needed at an “indie”. As I prepare to open my own local shop, Cheeky Monkeys Books & Toys, I find myself reflecting on (nay, obsessing about) why it is important to support local businesses. When you shop at independent locally-owned businesses, our entire community benefits:
- Spend $100 at a local and $68 of that stays in our community. Spend the same $100 at a national chain and our community only sees $43.
- More of your taxes are reinvested in our community – where they belong. When you order from Amazon, it doesn’t collect sales tax. You are actually depriving our schools, police & fire departments, etc. of that much-needed revenue!
- Buying local means less packaging, less transportation and a smaller carbon footprint.
- They use the goods and services of other local businesses, serve as community hubs and are vital components of healthy neighborhoods and strong city centers.
- Local retailers are your friends and neighbors — support them and they’ll support you.
- Local businesses donate to local charities at more than twice the rate of national chains.
- More independents mean more choice, more diversity and a truly unique community.
As a new mother and the future owner of a local independent children’s book and toy shop I have a favorite proverb – it takes a village to raise a child. If you want that village to be bursting with local businesses, rather than corporate chains, then you need to patronize them. Our future is in your hands (and your wallets). I look forward to opening my store in early 2011!
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You can help make the dream of opening Cheeky Monkeys Books & Toys in Downtown St Pete a reality by voting for us to win a Pepsi Refresh grant for the store’s start-up funds. Vote EVERY DAY in August – http://pep.si/cheekybuzz or text 101443 to 73774. For more info visit our Facebook page – http://facebook.com/cheekymonkeysbooks.
Our shop will feature a collection of items by local artists and our events will include local children’s authors and illustrators. We will support, promote and partner with local businesses and organizations and will give of our time and resources to local charities. We don’t just seek to engage with the community, but become an integral part of it.
Tags: 20100804
Thanks ever so much for asking us to write a guest article – we’re honored to have contributed! Please note that we are desperately trying to open by the end of this year, though, rather than early 2011!