Right now, our favorite independent local business owners are trying to find assistance for themselves and their employees to survive the next year of crazy unpredictability. It’s a daunting task, and although state and federal help may be on the way, it won’t arrive any time soon.
So let me try to convince you to do something helpful RIGHT NOW that WILL arrive soon: purchase a gift card or two. Do it every week. Even if you can only spare a few dollars. A gift card is a 0% loan that you can give your favorite local shop or restaurant. It is also a gesture of support, a virtual hug. It’s a tiny loan from you to a company that you love. You might never use the card, or you might use it in the better days ahead. You might give it to someone, and they might lose it. But the point is the gesture, which translates into short term help.
Grass roots business owners are choking right now. These folks are our neighbors, and their work-lives in the best of times and economies are far from easy. The hardest thing right now, they have told me, is having to lay off employees who have no benefits and no resources. That is sucking the life out of the heart of our community. Our purchasing gift cards is a way to help immediately.
When I hear my friends discuss investing in the stock market right now to realize the gains that most surely will come when things get better, I want to scream out: “FIRST, buy some gift cards! Invest in your community! Share the love where you live!”
Most businesses have a way to purchase gift cards online through their websites. Others you can buy over the phone or in person.
Companies like Starbucks have millions (sometimes billions) of dollars on their books listed as “stored value card liability.” Let’s give our local independent businesses a line item like that to think about. If you wait until next month to do it, it could be too late.