Cook County Chamber: This year, Shop Local is a powerful imperative
Nov 23, 2020 09:33AM ● By EditorBy Jim Boyd, Executive Director of the Cook County Chamber of Commerce - November 23, 2020
As we enter Thanksgiving week, the traditional start of our holiday season with its emphasis on gift-giving and celebration, please let us find ways to show our great thanks for the small businesses of Cook County, which provide the jobs and the products that make our community possible.
Never has the promotion “Shop Local” had greater importance. If we care about our community and its future, we will cheerfully and energetically shop the local stores and restaurants that are suffering grievously under the burden of the COVID-19 pandemic.
When Gov. Tim Walz last week announced a new set of four-week restrictions that prohibit bars and restaurants from offering indoor services, Hennepin County immediately announced it would make available $13 million in aid to the affected hospitality businesses.
But Cook County has no millions to give.
What Cook County does have, however, is 5,400 residents devoted to the preservation of their community. And its stores and restaurants and other businesses are very much at the heart of that community.
So please, as you are able, set aside those shopping trips to Duluth and find the things you need locally. Be willing to settle for locally available substitutes if you cannot find precisely what you sought. Avoid turning instinctively to Amazon as your first stop when you need to make a purchase. Look locally.
And please help our restaurants survive: Order take-out as often as you can and your budget allows. Every take-out order helps a restaurant – and its staff, never forget the staff – survive another day as a valued part of our lives.
Our businesses face an existential threat the likes of which we have not seen in our lifetimes. Unlike last spring, this time there is no state or federal aid to help them survive. It’s up to us. Those who are financially comfortable have a special opportunity to dig deep and help out – joyfully. No one should put themselves at risk financially, but please do what you can – ALL that you can – to spend local money with local people working in locally owned businesses.
Most people have little idea of how many times each week, year round, Cook County business owners and managers are approached for donations for this worthy local cause or that. And they give and give and give. They really do.
Now it is our obligation to return the favor. Our businesses have a great need – not for handouts, but for patronage. Please, buy everything you can in Grand Marais and Grand Portage, Tofte and Lutsen, Schroeder and the Gunflint Trail, and all the smaller points on our Cook County business map. Help preserve the small, local businesses that are such an essential part of Cook County life.
Jim Boyd
Executive Director