‘Tis the season for holiday shopping and if you are looking for a gift to give to your community you may not have to look further than your local businesses. To stimulate the economies of local communities Seacoast Local is organizing a holiday shopping campaign for the third consecutive year. The initiative is called Buy Local Week and will take place November 30th through December 6th in 24 towns across the seacoast. Seacoast Buy Local will be challenging citizens to nurture their communities by doing most or all of their holiday spending at local venues.
 

Buy Local week began several years ago when Karen Marzloff and other board members of Seacoast Local, Inc. discussed what they imagined their communities to look like in the next 10 to 20 years. They agreed they wanted the Seacoast to remain a unique culture with diverse businesses and individuals and the best way to do that was to promote environmentally and socially sustainable practices.
The practices advocated by Seacoast Local this holiday season are the 10% shift and shift mobs. The 10% shift is a regional campaign to encourage individuals to shift 10% of their household purchases to local products. A study in New Orleans, conducted by economist Dan Houston, reveals that when citizens redirect their spending to the local economy it can have a resounding impact on the local economy. In the study about twice the amount of the dollar an individual spent at a local store remained in the community because the same stores turned around and invested profits in local advertisers and other firms. In New Orleans, when consumers participated in the 10% shift, $235 million was generated in the city’s economy.
 

Shift mobs are another method of promoting local shopping. A shift mob is a mass of shoppers notified by Seacoast Buy Local via their mailing list to go to a specific store on a specific day to shop for their holiday celebrations. “The idea is that if as many people as possible show up at the same time we can show how much the local dollar has an impact on the economy,” says Marzloff. There will be seven shift mobs, one for each day of Buy Local Week. Each day will concentrate on a different industry such as toys, books and food. After the Buy Local Week Seacoast Local will compare the 2008 profits of each business to the profits they make this holiday season in hopes of seeing an increase to prove an individual’s decision to shop local does make a difference.
 

The 10% shift campaign is not just a seasonal project but a year-round commitment. “We’re not advocating for people to shift 100% of their consumption to local products. That’s not realistic. We’re advocating for people to be more aware,” says Marzloff. She believes the best way to support the local economy is for citizens to shift their mortgages, gas and gift shopping to local vendors. A calculator is available online at http://www.10percentshift.org/design/localshift.php for everyone interested in making the shift for their community.
 

Seacoast Local will also be holding an event with economist Dan Houston of Civic Economics, a company devoted to economic analysis and planning, who will be explaining the benefits of shopping local. He has conducted studies on growing economies in New Orleans, Louisiana and Grand Rapids, Michigan. The event will be held on Tuesday, December 8th at a location to be announced.
 

In the current economic downturn, sales at national chains are down by about 9% while sales at local stores have only decreased by an average of about 5%. In more aware communities sales have decreased by as little as 3% according to Marzloff. This may reveal how citizens value their local communities and are willing to sacrifice the ease of shopping at a big box store to maintain quaint, local businesses. As a director of Seacoast Local says, “Community is not like television and you can’t turn it on whenever you want it, you have to participate to make sure it’s going to stay.”
 

For more information on Seacoast Local visit http://seacoastlocal.org/index.php.