Small Business is where its at

Small Business is the lifeblood of our community. People complain that "you can't get ___ this here" (fill in the blank). Go to Altoona. Go to State College. Go wherever it is you think they have "everything",  but know that you are not doing yourself any favors. When your favorite coffee shop closes. Or when your favorite restaurant isn't serving. Or when you wish your town had a ... remember- we all play a part in that! Our local economy depends on us! So, buy somewhere else, but don't complain when your downtown is a ghost town.

Shift Your Shopping- Just do it, you know you want to!

As Main Street Manager, I often hear complaining about the lack of goods or services locally. I think there are two reasons for that. One is that people aren’t aware of what exists locally and two our local vendors don’t carry products because they can’t afford to carry something that 99% of us would rather drive to Wal-Mart for (even if it costs the same). This Christmas season, the Main Street Program is determined to make each and every resident of the Moshannon Valley think about where their shopping dollars are going.

We aren’t unique, there is a national campaign right now focusing on the impact of shopping local. As customers, we are about to collectively spend a large portion of our annual shopping budget between Nov. 1 and Dec. 31. On average, that is amount is about $700 per person, annually. But, do you ever think about where that money goes?

The fact is that when you buy something at a chain store or online, 95% or more of that money leaves our community. If you join us in shifting those dollars to locally owned, independent businesses, we’ll all generate 2-3 times as much economic activity in our community than if we had spent our money at a national chain. Across North America, that could mean billions of dollars of economic impact.

Typically, Americans stand in line for Black Friday deals. This year could be different. This year Americans could give the gift of genuine concern for other Americans. We can support our friends and neighbors who run local businesses. Everyone -- well almost EVERYONE gets their hair cut. How about gift a certificate from your local hair salon or barber? How about a gym or YMCA membership? It's appropriate for all ages who are thinking about some health improvement. Are you going to stand in line for a flat-screen TV? Perhaps that grateful gift receiver would like his driveway sealed, or lawn mowed for the summer, or driveway plowed all winter, or games at the local golf course. Or what about one of our many locally owned and operated restaurants? They all have gift certificates. Remember, this isn't about big National chains -- this is about supporting your home town Americans with their financial lives on the line to keep their doors open. How many people couldn't use an oil change for their car, truck or motorcycle, done at a shop run by the American working guy? Plan your holiday outings at local, owner operated restaurants and leave your server a nice tip. And, how about going out to see a movie at your hometown theatre?

Honestly, do we REALLY need to buy another ten thousand Chinese lights for the house? When you buy a five dollar string of lights, about fifty cents stays in the community. If you have those kinds of bucks to burn, leave the mailman, trash guy or babysitter a nice BIG tip. You see, Christmas shouldn’t be about pumping money into a big box, chain store. Christmas should be about caring about our community, encouraging American small businesses to keep plugging away to follow their dreams and offering them the support they need to succeed. When we care about other Americans, we care about our communities, and the benefits come back to us in ways we couldn't imagine.

So, the Philipsburg Main Street Program, along with communities all over the country, is encouraging you to make a difference! Support local, independent American businesses. Let’s build an annual tradition that strengthens local economies, expands employment, nurtures a sense of community, and provides a more relaxed, fun, and rewarding gift-buying experience.

www.shiftyourshopping.com

Shift Your Shopping!

The holiday shopping season is upon us and I am joining a national movement to Shift My Shopping from chain stores to local, independent businesses. And I want you to join me! 


Here is the skinny! www.shiftyourshopping.org 

Let’s build an annual tradition that strengthens local economies, expands employment, nurtures a sense of community, and provides a more relaxed, fun, and rewarding gift-buying experience.

As customers, we are about to collectively spend a large portion of our annual shopping budget between Nov. 1 and Dec. 31. If you join us in shifting those dollars to locally owned, independent businesses, we’ll all generate 2-3 times as much economic activity in our community than if we had spent our money at a national chain. Across North America, that could mean billions of dollars of economic impact.

This campaign, representing more than 38,000 businesses across the U.S. and Canada, encourages residents to take job creation and economic concerns into their own hands by exercising their power to strengthen their own local economies.

This is an effective strategy all year-round, but especially important at the holidays:  The National Retail Federation reports that holiday shoppers plan to spend an average of $704.18 on holiday gifts and seasonal merchandise in 2011. That’s down slightly from last year, but NRF is still forecasting overall holiday retail sales to grow 2.8 percent during the months of November and December, to $465.6 billion.

Keeping that money in your community will have a proven impact.

Numerous studies have found directing that spending to locally owned, independent businesses will create impressive benefits. For example, a 2008 study of Kent County Michigan by Civic Economics projected shifting 10% of the county’s per capita spending from chains to locally-owned independent businesses would create “almost $140 million in new economic activity and 1,600 new jobs for the region.”

In addition, annual surveys over the last four years show that places that “go local” do better. For example, last year, the Institute for Local Self Reliance gathered data on annual revenue changes from nearly 2,800 independent business. That data revealed independent businesses in communities executing long-term “buy local and independent” campaigns averaged a healthy 5.6 percent increase over the previous year. This gain more than doubled the 2.1 percent increase reported by independent businesses in areas lacking such campaigns. All of those campaigns operated with support from the American Independent Business Alliance (AMIBA) and/or Business Alliance for Local Living Economies (BALLE).

Shift Your Shopping combines the efforts of AMIBA and BALLE with more than 150 local business alliances comprised of over 38,000 local businesses. Grassroots groups like Asheville Grown Business Alliance in North Carolina and Oakland Grown in California will execute campaigns with their own flair, picking and choosing from campaigns like Buy Local First week, America Unchained!, and Plaid Friday, the colorful alternative to Black Friday.

ShiftYourShopping.org provides access to resources from all of these campaigns, including templates that allow anyone to spread the message easily in their community. Anyone can participate and make a direct impact where they live.

How Local Alliances Help Small Businesses Thrive Year Round

The most successful entrepreneurs often do more than just operate a great business—they are local champions who are connected to other businesses and invested in the future of their hometown.

For nearly 10 years now, such like-minded businesses have been uniting through unique, local, grassroots “Think Local First” programs in towns and cities all across the country. They work together to support all locally owned, independent businesses in a community. There are now more than 150 such non-profit groups, and many studies to that show the benefits of a thriving local economy.

How does it work?

A single merchant has limited ability to shift attitudes or consumer spending, but by building strength in numbers, we can create a culture of support for independent business locally and a strong voice to advocate for the interests of local independents and the communities they serve.

Most alliances often start with Buy Local campaigns. These groups may also facilitate group purchasing, cooperative branding, advance pro-local public policy, and more.

Getting started in your town:

Here are the leading resources available to help independent businesses and organizations come together where you live to engage in these activities.

The American Independent Business Alliance (AMIBA) and Business Alliance for Local Living Economies (BALLE) provide training and support to local, collaborative networks of independent businesses across the U.S. and Canada.

• AMIBA provides a wide array of tools, templates and support for independent business owners and advocates to launch effective buy local campaigns, organize group purchasing and marketing and advance pro-local policy initiatives. For businesses, their “buy local in a box” is an easy first step.
• BALLE supports local networks that promote sustainable agriculture, fair trade, local business ownership, green building, renewable energy, community capital, zero-waste manufacturing and other program areas that form the foundation of “local living economies.”

Indie Bound is a pro-local, pro-independent marketing campaign of the American Booksellers Association, an independent trade association that welcomes and provides support to all types of businesses who want to participate in their Indie Bound campaign.

The New Rules Project, a program of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, is the go-to source for economic impact studies, pro-local policy examples and other research that documents the power of local ownership, provides you with a case for growing it in your community, and how to advance it with better public policy. Their Community Banking Initiative provides unique resources.

Remember, you don’t necessarily need to lead a local alliance, you just need to get things started. We’re here to help.

An excerpt from the Preservation Blog I linked to yesterday!

Below is text from the National Trust blog about community centered schools. When our school district decided to close the ONLY walkable school left in the district in favor of a $22 million dollar renovation of a school built in a greenfield, frankly I was pissed. I still am pissed. It is my JOB to make sure our community core is being revitalized, abandoning an 100,000 sq ft building doesn't help matters. Now, you may say that the same would occur if they abandoned the other building, but also in my line of work, I am well aware of the needs of businesses seeking commercial and industrial space. The fact is, we could have found a tenant or multiple tenants interested in using North Lincoln Hill as manufacturing/warehousing/distribution space. There is NO market for the same type of use within the core of this residential neighborhood. I tried to convince the district of this, but their ears were closed. Unfortunately we will all pay the price in the form of increased cost to transport kids, unnecessary renovations at NLH (ie- building a 650 auditorium when the junior high already has one), not to mention the decrease in property values, blight, decay, and vandalism that will inevitably occur in the heart of this neighborhood. Hope that these new recommendations save another town from the same fate. 

Excerpt...

The first-ever federal guidance on school siting offers local education authorities, tribes, and states suggestions similar to the ones that preservation organizations, including the National Trust for Historic Preservation, have been making over the past decade. This new tool:

Encourages examination of existing school facilities for rehabilitation and expansion before constructing a new school

Suggests states provide local education authorities with coordinated guidance from multiple state agencies including valuable information from State and Tribal Preservation Offices

Calls for “meaningful public participation” by stakeholder groups such as parents, teachers, school personnel and nearby residents in a transparent siting process

• Encourages “joint use” of facilities;
• Proposes an evaluation of existing policies and practices at local and state levels in light of these recommendations;
• Discusses how construction of large schools on greenfields leads to “underinvestment in the community core and existing facilities” while rehabilitating existing buildings helps conserve energy and resources;
• One of the four underlying principles states that “schools should be located in environments that contribute to the livability, sustainability, and public health of neighborhoods and communities;”
• And more … but you’ll have to read them for yourself to believe it.

Best of all, the guidelines are written in easy-to-understand language for those of us unfamiliar with terms like “phytoremediation” and “total petroleum hydrocarbons.”

How did this new tool for community-centered schools come about?

In December 2007, Congress enacted the Energy Independence and Security Act (EISA).1 Among the provisions included in the Act was a requirement that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) develop, in consultation with the Departments of Education and Health and Human Services, model guidelines for the siting of school facilities that take into account:

• The special vulnerabilities of children to hazardous substances or pollution exposures in any case in which the potential for contamination at a potential school site exists;
• The modes of transportation available to students and staff;
• The efficient use of energy; and
• The potential use of a school at the site as an emergency shelter.

During the public comment period, many preservation organizations, including the National Trust for Historic Preservation, provided useful suggestions on how these voluntary guidelines could help sustain our older communities.

I, for one, think they succeeded.

But here’s where the hard work begins. These voluntary guidelines are just that – voluntary. The preservation community needs to take the next step and help states, tribes and local education authorities – those entities with responsibility for decision-making regarding school buildings and operations – adopt and implement these guidelines during a time when school districts and state agencies are struggling with shrinking budgets and staff.

To learn more about the EPA’s voluntary siting guidelines and other new tools, join a Fall Webinar Series called “Expanding the School Siting Conversation.”

community centered schools make sense

PreservationNation » Three Cheers for EPA’s New School Siting Guidelines

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Good day downtown yesterday!

It probably helps that I live just blocks from downtown and have lived in town basically my whole life, nonetheless...

Yesterday I took the boys downtown for church, then we went to Retro Eatery for breakfast to support the YMCA Summer Youth Theatre's cast of Peter Pan (go Devin!), I spent the afternoon at the Philipsburg Historical Foundation Museum and Research rooms and then went to Weis for groceries. All in all a great day in historic downtown Philipsburg.

what i got down town today

Ever see those coupon people? You know the ones. They get $1000 worth of groceries for like $18.56. Of course , half the stuff they got, they can't use but hey- it was free! That is one thing. Wasteful, probably but it not hurting anybody. I think Big Box/chain stores make all of us that way. We get in the car and drive to Wal-Mart to "save" money. We buy things we don't need because we have to navigate through endless" deals". So much so that we probably spend more than we would have going to a store with "fewer choices". They make us think we are saving so much money we can't afford not to buy it. This speaks volumes about who we are, as Americans.

But, I digress. My point was... I mostly just buy what I need. And i buy as much as I can locally. So, from time to time, I am going to post what I "Found In Town". Today I found a yummy lunch at the Gaslight Cafe and Easter candy (the best) at Gardner's Candies.

Carry on.

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New restaraunt coming to downtown!

I am so excited!! Retro Eatery will be opening soon in downtown Philipsburg! Today, the local online newspaper has an offer to get $50 to spend at Retro for $25. How can you beat that? I bought one and I cannot wait to use it! Visit www.retroeatery.com to see their menu and visit www.gantdaily.com to purchase

http://myemail.constantcontact.com/Trout--Prime-Rib-and-Comedy-at-The-Philips.html?soid=1103010792649&aid=AJ0IXqmQIO0

http://myemail.constantcontact.com/Trout--Prime-Rib-and-Comedy-at-The-Philips.html?soid=1103010792649&aid=AJ0IXqmQIO0

Just don't tell me there is nothing in Philipsburg...

You can make all the excuses you want for not shopping locally, just don't tell me its because there is nothing here. I drove through many small communities this weekend as my 9 year old and I meander back roads on our way to a basketball tournament. It made me realize how lucky we, here in Philipsburg, are to have as much as we do. Some of these older, small towns are practically ghost towns. Goes back to a principal I believe with my whole heart- we need to support the businesses we have or we will end up like those other little towns! 

 No joke, I shop in the "greater" Philipsburg area 90-95% of the time. And I try really hard to do it at locally owned businesses. If I can’t do that, I at least try to stay in town. A small consolation when I have to shop a chain is that local “Big Box” is employing my friends and neighbors. Granted, I am NOT a huge shopper. Not for lack of trying (thanks Ryan) but I do have 3 children who need new clothes and shoes when they out grow them, they need food and medicines weekly, their friends have birthdays for which I must provide a gift, I need gas to run them around, and they will break my kitchens chairs and I will need new ones, and I can do all of those things here. I wouldn’t say I shop a lot, but when I do, I try to do it here. I know you can’t always but if you do it when you can we all win.  

I recognize that you cannot always shop local. Something I cannot find/cannot be bought in Philipsburg- Beyblades and Star Wars Galactic Heroes, two things my boys MUST have, lol. I will buy all my Easter candy at Gardner's, get all my prescriptions from Grattan's. My kids favorite choice for pizza is Brother's. Chinese- Main Won. We LOVE the Rowland and and whoopie pies from the Farmers' market. Chicken fries at the Gaslight (while I have the BEST salad ever) and the Little Restaurant for "the mess" for breakfast. Bock's has the best french onion soup in the world and The 1921 in the Philips Hotel offers fantastic seafood! Seriously, why would I go anywhere else? Off the top of my head, these are things you can do just in downtown Philipsburg and I am sure I have missed some. I am also pretty sure a lot of other towns would he thankful to have a list like this.

What can you do in downtown Philipsburg?

Drycleaning… Marrara’s and Shamrock
Auto Repair/Towing… Price Parkway, Choice Bumper, Flathead Dan's
Food… Bock’s Dining and Tea Room, Snappy’s, Subway, Minit Mart, Brother’s, Main Won, Little Restaurant, Retro Eatery, Gaslight Café, 1921 in the Philips Hotel, BTO
Hair- Jackie Mostyn’s, Elaine Adams, Sharon and Kelly’s, Sarah Miller, Bill Spanogle
Retail… Bock’s Village Store, Grattan’s, National Furniture, Gardner’s, Front Street Jewelers, PSR, Rothrock’s, Transfer Express, Jackie’s Vintage Hairloom, Olenick’s Printing, Steiners’ Hometown Appliance, Dollar General, The Gaslight Café, Elaine’s Beauty Salon, Wicker and Brass Works, Katey’s Korner, Universal Furniture, Universal Square, Ricotta Jewelry, Fisher Auto Parts, Philipsburg Electric, Bordas TV & Electronics, YBC, Weis Markets, Philipsburg Electric
Entertainment/Recreation/Fitness… The Rowland Theatre, Shaw and Ghaner School of Dance, DJ Studios Karate, Williams’ Billiards, Curves, Ultimate Weight Loss Center
Doctors…
---2 Podiatrists
---Psychiatrists- Dr. Mary Hart; Spaw Counseling Services
---Dentists- Dr. Piniuk, Dr. Chintella, Dr. Mackin, Dr Irwin
---Chiropractors- Casteel Chiropractic
---Ophthalmologists- Central Penn Vision
County/State Government/Non-Profits- Philipsburg, Historical Foundation, Senator John Wozniak, Stat Rep Conklin, Holt Memorial Library, Tapestry of Heath, WIC, Community Action, Philipsburg Area Daycare, Philipsburg Elks, Philipsburg Masonic Lodge, Philipsburg Main Street Program, VFW, AMVETS, Moshannon Valley EMS, Hope Fire Company, Reliance Fire Company, United States Post Office,
Attorneys…Mason Law Offices, DeBoef & Lucchesi, Joann Y. Parks Mackin, John Carfley, The Closing Company
Insurance… All-State, Nationwide, Simler Insurance, Jones Insurance, State Farm Insurance
Professional Offices… Professional Satellite Repair, Surferquest, ECMG Marketing
Banking… M&T Bank, CNB Bank
Financial Services/Accounting… Pappalia Financial, Central PA Tax Doctors, H& R Block, Jackson Hewitt
Newspapers…The Philipsburg Journal, The Progress
Churches- First Lutheran, St Thomas of Canterbury
Other… Jay Krause, Hurwitz Brothers, Guenot Builders, The Towers, Philips Place, Philips Court, RP Supply, 

I honestly shop local as much as I can

I have wanted to talk about local shopping opportunities for awhile and it occurred to me this weekend (as I was shopping) that maybe the best way for me to do that is to talk about where I shop locally and what I buy there.

I will preface this by saying that I don't shop a lot. Not only is retail therapy not in my budget most weeks, but it isn't something I enjoy that much. I am sort of a "get in, get what you need, get out" kind of person. However, this weekend I had to pick up prescriptions. I get our's filled at our local, independent, downtown pharmacy. Grattan's Pharmacy and Gifts in downtown Philipsburg. I got groceries at Weis this weekend too. Now, I am aware Weis is not locally owned, but it IS in our Main Street District and the store employs a lot of local folks. Friday I ate lunch at The Gaslight Cafe. I also stopped in and got a few things at the Dollar General. Again, I know this is not a local company, but our Dollar General is downtown and generates (by our counts) about 35 people an hour. They too employ locals and if they are that much of a destination all of our businesses benefit. Better than visiting the Family Dollar in the plaza, in my mind at least. Last, but not least, I visited our locally owned distributor for a case of my favorite brew.

So, you can see that I didn't shop a ton, but I put money in the registers of businesses that are going to turn around and pay wages with my money this week or spend that money at other locally owned businesses. Next time you get in your car to go out of town to do these things, challenge yourself to find it locally. It matters!

High Cost of Low Prices

So I watched the video today, Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Prices. The video is from 2006 but is in the news again because Wal-Mart is trying to build inner city stores in New York City. As usual, Wal-Mart is saying they will create 1200 new jobs and generate $10 million in tax revenue. These are true but they are misleading. What they don't tell you is, for every job they create 1 1/2-2 jobs will be lost in the community because other businesses will close. They also omit the fact that these tax revenues aren't new, they are just being shifted from other businesses. Not to mention, real estate values will plummet causing a decrease in property tax revenue.

As Al Norman (founder of Sprawl-Busters) says in the film "They (Wal-Mart) don't get it. When we start talking about quality of life, they start talking about cheap underwear. I keep saying, you can't buy small town quality of life at a Wal-Mart. They don't sell it. But, once they steal it from you, you can't get it back at any price."

Need a local example of this? Clearfield, PA. Clearfield "welcomed" their Wal-Mart Supercenter over a decade ago.Today, there is no place to buy groceries except Wal-Mart and their downtown and other locally owned businesses are struggling. Because everything in Clearfield has closed, and Wal-Mart has no competition, their prices are really high! People think they are getting choice when Wal-Mart comes to town. People think they are getting a "great deal" on stuff. Trust me, once the competition is gone, we all pay more!

I would encourage anyone to watch the documentary, you can find it here: http://thefightback.org/2011/02/yes-says-no-to-walmart/

As a Main Street manager I hear all the time that there is "no where to shop" in town. 9 times out of 10, I can point out at least three places that that person has never heard of or stepped inside of before. It isn't that the places aren't here, it is that people don't seek them out. Thanks to the proliferation of the automobile, our society is used to jumping in the car driving to a mall or shopping center, parking, and walking from store to store. We don't seem care that it is a generic experience, basically the exact experience we can get at any mall or shopping center. We are willing to spend our valuable time and gas money driving there for this generic experience too. Boggles my mind. Some people cite cost, getting the "best deal". Yeah, it makes sense to drive over an hour round trip and spent $3.15 per gallon on fuel to save $3.00 sure... (READ- sarcasm). But until people's mind set changes this will continue. I wish there was an easy way to demonstrate to people how important their spending decisions are...

I swear I am not an extremist just passionate

First of all, let me explain where I am coming from on this. As I see it, thanks to stores like Wal-Mart we, as Americans, have become brainwashed about what we NEED. There is a huge difference between what we NEED versus what we WANT. And, frankly, places like Wal-Mart have made all of us feel like we need so much more than we do. It is no wonder we are in a mess with foreclosures and people in over there heads in credit card debt. Americans believe we NEED to have things that we don't really NEED, we merely WANT them. I can get everything I NEED within a 3 miles radius of my home. That includes schooling and doctors. Even without a vehicle or public transportation, I can get all of my (and my family's) NEEDS met. I realize that everyone is going to buy those WANTS too. My boys collect Star Wars Galactic Heroes and believe me you cannot find those anywhere within a 20 miles radius. Obviously, sometimes you have to shop somewhere else, but this is about being conscious about where you spend your money.  And about trying to spend it in locally owned, independent businesses when you can because it has an impact on your community. But, do people really understand the impact they have when they shop? I would say most don't so let me provide a few facts that demonstrate this impact. 

Let's aim to improve the economic health of our neighborhoods, our localities and our shopping corridors.

1. Shopping local creates jobs. Shops in your town create local employment and self-employment. These people in turn spend in the local economy.
2. Local independent shops invest more in your communities. Local businesses are proportionally more generous in their support of local charities, schools, and community events. So supporting local shops means a financial contribution to your community.
3. Local shops sell great products at affordable prices. Some people get out of the habit of shopping locally and are then surprised by the range of products available.
4. Shopping locally saves you time and money. You travel less, saving on time and fuel.
5. Shopping locally retains your communities. People don’t like losing shops and services in small towns but don’t equate this with how they spend their money.
6. Shopping locally retains your distinctiveness. Independent shops create distinctive shopping experiences and stock different products. Local businesses respond more quickly to the needs of local customers, stocking products to meet changing population needs.
7. Shopping locally saves the environment. Local shops often stock a high percentage of locally sourced goods that do not require long-distance transportation, helping to reduce our global footprint.
8. Local shops are for everyone. Most people can get to their local shops easily. This is especially important for the elderly, young people and others who rely on public transportation.
9. Local shops value you more. Evidence from numerous surveys show people receive better customer care and service locally. These businesses survive by their reputation and repeat business, which means you get a higher standard of service.
10. Shopping local saves services. Private and public sector services cluster around shops. As shops disappear so do hairdressers, banks, restaurants and other businesses.

Consumers can pledge to Think, Shop, Buy, Local and commit to patronizing businesses near where they live and work. Local stores employ your neighbors, pay taxes that support your schools and improve your roads, and contribute to local non-profit groups.

Together we can strengthen relationships that improve our quality of life. So next time before you make a purchase, Think, Shop, Buy, Local.

Credit: Barbara Wold
Barbara Wold is an internationally known speaker and authority to the retail and consumer industries.  More than 40 years of firsthand retail experience in executive and sales management,marketing and repositioning have made Ms Wold as one of retail's most sought after speakers and consultants.  Ms Wold is an authority on building business through customer driven strategy and maximizing human assets.

I am a Downtown Dork and I am proud of it!

My name is Emily and I love downtowns! I love locally owned, independent businesses. I literally get sick in the stomach when someone tells me they are headed to Sam's Club. And I get very offended when people say there is no where to shop in our small town. It isn't just that managing a downtown revitalization program is my job, though that is part of it. And it isn't just that I was born and raised in a small historic community, though that is part of it too. I think I am a downtown dork because I truly feel it is important. It is important to our towns. It is important to our business owners. It is important to our quality of life. So, I have made this blog to talk about why shopping local is important and to try and demonstrate the impact that local spending has on our communities. I have no idea where it will lead, but I feel driven to put it out there. So, I hope you read it. I hope you follow it. And I hope that somehow I can make a difference.