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Chamber, BID encourage Humboldt residents to shop local

HUMBOLDT — A joint campaign between the Humboldt and District Chamber of Commerce and the Downtown Business Improvement District is encouraging Humboldt residents to shop local.
Businesses

HUMBOLDT — A joint campaign between the Humboldt and District Chamber of Commerce and the Downtown Business Improvement District is encouraging Humboldt residents to shop local.

Brent Fitzpatrick, the chamber’s executive director, said it’s important to support businesspeople that live right in this community.

“It's about supporting those people that locally will support your kids in dance and buying cookies. All of that stuff that businesses in the community do, they do in your town,” he said.

“Every dollar that you spend beyond our borders, it's not money spent here in town and doesn't do the community any good.”

According to research by Civic Economics, which examined the economic impact of buying local in B.C. in 2013 , locally owned retailers recirculated 45 per cent of their revenue back into the local economy, compared to the 17 per cent recirculated by their non-local brethren.

Fitzpatrick challenged people to shop local first before going elsewhere. 

“I can't underscore strongly enough how important it is to look at home first. There's going to be some things that you cannot purchase here. That's just the way of the world.”

He added that in many cases, doing that would result in comparable prices while not having to spend time on highways in winter conditions.

This year is the first time the chamber is co-operating with the BID with a buy local program.

“I'm really excited about that partnership,” he said. “It's just a natural way that we ensure that we're able to pay for the volume of ads that we need in the right marketing, to get the message out there about shopping local.”

The campaign begins this week and goes into December, with particular focus put into the big shopping weeks in November.