Letter to the Editor: Shop Local this Christmas Season

Christmas shopping...such a small phrase, yet it conjures up many diverse feelings in many of us.  Maybe you love it, maybe you hate it, maybe you wait all year for it to begin...or to be over.  Maybe it stirs memories of years gone by...pictures with Santa, looking for that perfect gift for a loved one, or one to put on your own Christmas list, a child's or a grandchild's first Christmas, maybe just a stroll into town to look at the lights and the window decorations.

Whatever the case, or the memories or feelings that it stirs, it is here with us until the end of the year.  While planning your Christmas shopping escapades this year, I ask you to remember the following phrase...Shop at a local independent store, and nearly 70% of what you spend will come back to your local economy, shop at a chain and it drops to around 30%, if you order something through the mail, it drops to Zero!  In today's age of big business, chain stores, and online shopping, the power of the local small businesses is often lost in the shuffle.

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg recently said, “Small businesses are the backbone of our economy and the glue that holds communities together, and we’ve always sought new ways to support them – something that became even more important when the national economic downturn began."

Small businesses are critical to the nation’s overall economy. According to the U.S. Small Business Administration, there were nearly 28 million small businesses in the United States last year.  Over the past two decades, they created 65 percent of net new jobs.  Their importance to local communities extends even further.  For every $100 spent in locally-owned, independent stores, $68 returns to the community through taxes, payroll and other expenditures, according to the small business advocacy group The 3/50 Project.

So this year, let's all try to support our local economies by shopping at local small businesses.  Let’s start at Christmas, and make it a New Year's resolution to continue the trend into next year and beyond.  Let’s start something big that will stir a future memory of the year that we all helped get the economy back on track.  We have to look out for ourselves, if we don't, we can't expect anyone else to.

Jerry Jackapino, Pharmacist 

Hazlet Pharmacy/The Perfect Gift