Look Local First campaign encourages residents to shop locally

By BROOKS TAYLOR

Mt. Pleasant News

More and more Mt. Pleasant residents are looking local first.

And that pleases Mt. Pleasant Area Chamber Alliance members and officials.

The Chamber Alliance launched a ?Look Local First? campaign late last year and Chamber officials have received feedback through early returns that the campaign can be a success.

?We have definitely seen a shift (to more local shopping),? noted Judy Marshall, Chamber membership coordinator and one of the Chamber officials instrumental in launching the campaign. ?We heard from a number of retailers that people were bringing in cards for the discounts.?

Cards with discounts being offered by local merchants were distributed in late November ? just in time for the holiday shopping season. Although the discounts were intended for holiday shopping, some of the discounts are still being honored by the merchants.

In addition, Look Local First shopping bags, which is the key to receiving the discounts, are available for purchase at either the Chamber of any of the 25 participating businesses. For a list of the businesses, visit www.mountpleasantiowa.org and click on the ?Look Local First? link.

Marshall said the impetus of the campaign is an effort to build awareness of the importance of supporting locally owned business. She said that when consumers shop locally, they invest in their community, neighbors and themselves.

The goal of the campaign is to change buying habits and unite the community by merging its greatest resources ? local customers and local small businesses.

Look Local First is a response to questions by Chamber members and board members on how an effort can be made to stress the importance of shopping locally.

A committee, comprised of Chamber members, board members and Chamber staff, began meeting in March 2011 to build the campaign.

Possibly a byproduct of the campaign was the increase in the purchase of Chamber bucks in 2011. Marshall said the amount purchased (over $20,000) more than doubled 2010?s sales. In December 2011, $13,000 worth of Chamber bucks were purchased.

Marshall noted that Look Local First is a work in progress. ?We will continue with it, but there will be some changes. We have a lot more to improve on and have to search through many more branches of the look local theory to continue to be successful.?