Love a Local on Saturday Nov. 26!

Shop happy, shop small, and show some love to your local economy.

American Express and a fleet of other corporations and government groups (see the full list on the website) are promoting the idea that on the Saturday after Thanksgiving, we should all spend some of our money and time supporting locally owned businesses.  Through advertising on facebook, on radio, and even on TV, the idea of Small Business Saturday is taking hold.  Word of mouth is passing the idea along and twitter is abuzz.

To officially participate, a business needs to accept American Express cards.  While the Happy Up stores don't take American Express, many of the small businesses in our area that we love (and bet you do, too) are participating.  So we're delighted to add our voice to the growing chorus and hope y'all aren't totally shopped out yet.

Save some of that energy for tomorrow.  Stop in your favorite locally owned, totally unique, favorite, fabulous, and festive small business.  Buy yourself a treat, or find something to give as a gift.

By shopping with locally owned businesses, the majority of your money *stays* in the community.  It helps support your schools, repair your roads, and is spent at other businesses.  It creates jobs, it keeps our shopping areas vibrant and interesting, and it's sooo much more fun!

Don't think you can make it to a locally owned store on Saturday?  No problemo.  You can have the same impact on your local economy if you roll with the 3/50 Project.  Super simple:  Pick three locally owned businesses.  Spend $50 at those three businesses, and the impact is massive. 

Most of the money spent at the big box stores vanishes and isn't reinvested in your community.  Money spent at the big boys on the internet never returns to your community, not even in the form of sales tax.

So love a local and love your community!

Join us in celebrating Neighborhood Toy Store Day!

What, you may be wondering, is Neighborhood Toy Store Day? Good question. I knew our readers were smart people!

Neighborhood Toy Store Day is a nation-wide event dreamed up by the member stores of ASTRA, the American Specialty Toy Retailing Association. The idea is to celebrate independently owned and locally operated toy stores as well as bring attention to the contributions these businesses make to our local communities.

When you choose to shop at locally owned businesses, a higher percentage of your money stays in the community. According to the 3/50 project (read about that in an earlier blog post here: The 3/50 Project) for every $100 spent in a locally owned business, $68 of it remains in the community. This money stays in the form of paid taxes, wages for workers, purchases of supplies and services, as well as charitable donations. This is one of the reasons Mom & Pop businesses are considered the key and lifeblood of our economy. When small businesses thrive, our communities do, too.

So that’s an awful lot of grown-up seriousness happening in that paragraph. What about the infamous Happy Up silliness? Where does that factor in? Glad you asked that! Like all other ASTRA member stores, LagoonaMagoo Toys and Once Upon a Toy are completely committed to seeing children thrive. By offering unique, amazing, imaginative, and creative toys to our customers, we help children grow into unique, amazing, imaginative, and creative grown-ups. By encouraging and supporting the idea of play for people of all ages, we create laughter and lighter spirits. And who doesn’t want more of that in the world?

So Celebrate individuality, silliness, playfulness, and what makes your world unique with your favorite toy store on Saturday, Nov. 13, 2010 and be a part of the first ever Neighborhood Toy Store Day!

You can read more about the event here:  http://neighborhoodtoystoreday.com/

PS--  watch this space for the schedule of events for Toy Store Day at both LagoonaMagoo Toys and Once Upon a Toy!

The 3/50 Project

Have you heard of it yet?

The 3/50 project is a group effort to support locally owned businesses.  Unlike many efforts to focus attention on the difficulties mom-and-pop businesses face in our current economy, the 3/50 Project doesn't point fingers or assign blame or insist that there is only one right way to support small businesses.  Here's what the 3/50 Projects asks you to do:

#1:  Stop and think of three locally owned businesses you'd hate to see disappear.  Maybe it's that coffee shop with the local artists' paintings on the wall.  Or maybe it's that bookstore you haven't been to in a while.  Or maybe it's the toy store with employees that always remember you.

#2:  At those three businesses, spend $50.00 a month.  That's $50 total.  $16.66 at each business.  And if you go in for the high-end coffee drinks, that can happen faster than you imagine! 

And that's it.  That's all you have to do.  It's that easy.
So what does your $50 a month at three local businesses actually do?  Well...  Here's a jaw-dropping statistic:  If half of all the employed adults in the US spent $50 a month in local businesses, there would be an additional $42.6 billion pouring into our local economies.  And it isn't just about an inflow of money to one business.  For every $100 spent at a local business, $68 of it *stays* in the local economy.  It stays in the form of wages, taxes, local charities supported, sports teams sponsored, and profits reinvested through purchases at other local businesses. 

That same $100 spent at a chain store only leaves $43 in the local economy.  And purchases made online?  That money goes *poof* and disappears to someone else's town.

Are we asking you to *stop* shopping at chain stores or making purchases online?  No.  There's no need to abandon the big box mega marts or those easy to use webstores.  Just choose a few things, a handful of items, that you'll buy at a store owned by the people down the block.  And stick to it. 

Pick 3.  Spend $50.  Save your town.
For more information or to get your own business involved, you can read all about it here:  http://www.the350project.net/home.html