Back to Business

The election is over, and whether your man won or lost, it’s about time to get back to business! It seems that so many things have tied our little city in knots over the past 12 months. The St. Francis Hospital scare, gas prices over the summer, the stock market collapse, the housing market collapse, the presidential election, the mayoral election. Meanwhile, the businesses on Western, and all over Blue Island, struggle to survive until all these messes clear themselves up.
One thing that we all should have learned by now is that life goes on. The hospital was sold, gas prices are down, the stock market and housing markets are showing signs of recovery. People feared that if Obama was elected that there would be rioting in the streets. It didn’t happen. People were skittish about our mayoral election. What would happen? What would happen? Whether your man won or lost, life goes on. The business of being city continues, just as the business of being a country continues. We can’t just stop living because things aren’t great.
So the question becomes: What do we do now? It’s time to start pulling together as a community, and realize that we are all in this together. It’s time to look around and figure out what our part in this city should be. I have been a strong advocate of spending $5.00 a day in Blue Island for over a year now. Recently I have discovered that someone else has a better plan, and it is taking root around the country. It’s called the 3/50 Project and it was created by Cinda Baxter. Local affiliates of CBS, NBC, and ABC have picked up the story and started to give it coverage. Caroline Kennedy is endorsing the 3/50 Project.
Having been an independent stationery store owner for fourteen years, Cinda Baxter understood the pain felt by retailers when the economy sank and consumers held back. What began as an economic downturn in the autumn had become a psychological tsunami by March 1st.
What the country needed, in her opinion, was a meeting of the minds between two groups that held valuable stakes in the game—small business owners and members of their communities.
Enter The 3/50 Project.
With a tag line “Save your local economy three stores at a time,” the project’s goal is to promote shopping in locally owned businesses while thanking customers for the positive impact that decision has on a local economy.
“We ask consumers to think about which three stores they’d miss if they disappeared, then remind them to return there,” explains Baxter. “Shoppers have become so rooted in thinking about the essentials that they’ve forgotten about the little store on the corner whose owner remembers their name.”
“Fifty comes from the idea that if even half the employed population spent a mere $50 per month in locally owned retail stores, those purchases would generate more than $42.6 billion in revenue,” she continues. “That’s a huge impact for a relatively small investment.”
Which leads to a third number on the flyer, sixty-eight—the dollar amount that remains in a community’s economy for every $100 spent in locally owned stores. By contrast, only $43 per one hundred remains local when spent in national chains; little or no revenue results from online purchases.
“In essence, the whole thing boils down to: Pick 3, spend 50, save the economy. It’s really that simple.”
If you’d like to learn more about the 3/50 Project, go to http://www.the350project.net/
In the meantime, you’ll still find me on Western, spending my $5.00 a day in Blue Island.