Melanie Galea, local realtor and host of Discover Fort McMurray is encouraging residents to shop local.
The Canadian Chamber of Commerce reports that 63 cents from every dollar spent in the community, stays in the community.
“These local businesses are the ones supporting our sporting events, big festivals, all kinds of different events, the money just flows back and forth, so by shopping local you get to support your own community.”
On Thursday, Aug. 15 she will be hosting a social media campaign to promote 30 local businesses who will be having special sales for that day only.
“The whole intention is to interrupt the conversation ‘I didn’t know that was here… oh I forgot about that,’ some of the complaints I always hear are ‘oh you can’t get it here’ or ‘it’s way more money,’ sometimes you just have to check first.”
She wants to bridge the gap between local shops and shoppers by opening up the conversation.
Shoppers can post on the page items they are looking for and find out where they are available in town.
Social media users are also encouraged to use the hashtag #iShopYMM to show people where they are shopping, what they are buying and tag Discover Fort McMurray and the business they are shopping at.
“We just lost Just Kidding… we’re losing local restaurants as well, I know everyone’s budgets are tight but just try a little bit harder to shop local, that item you are looking for might be here and it might surprise you that it is the same or less money here.”
The next shop local event will be the Moonlight Madness on Dec. 6, in conjunction with the Fort McMurray Chamber of Commerce shop local passport program.
Last year the program tracked that $450,000 was spent in Fort McMurray during the holiday shopping season.
Businesses can register for the next event by signing up on Discovery Fort McMurray.
