‘It’s been a very challenging time’ for King businesses during holiday season

King Township is encouraging you to shop locally to help small businesses get through COVID-19

Yorkreigon.com
Dec. 2

Small businesses may be struggling during the COVID-19 pandemic, but there’s a way you can help -- by shopping locally.

That’s the message the King Township economic development office is sending out to shoppers who may be looking for gifts for the holiday season.

“It’s been a very challenging time for our business community. The information is changing in an ongoing basis so we’ve tried to provide support in any way we can,” said Aimee Artinian-Wong, economic development co-ordinator.

The township is pushing its ShopKing campaign, which encourages people to shop locally in King Township. ShopKing promotes local businesses through a variety of avenues, such as social media, the township website or the township newsletter.

The economic development office and the King Chamber of Commerce always work together, but it’s been an especially close relationship since the beginning of the pandemic, Artinian-Wong said.

Artinian-Wong said people can shop in-store or even online at several local businesses. She encourages people to buy gift cards at local businesses as well.

“You could order to-go from our local restaurants,” she said. “Our King community has been really supportive in that respect. It’s been really great to see.”

Another way Artinian-Wong said people can support local businesses during the holiday season is to promote them.

“Get social and really promote your favourite businesses and those you’ve got something from and just getting the conversation going online as well so that we can really support our businesses in every way possible,” she said.

King Township has an “incredible” business community and it’s important to shop locally so that community can survive a difficult time, Artinian-Wong said.

“There’s such a wide variety of businesses and we all know right now it’s a very difficult time for them because they’re not necessarily able to have the customer base coming in that perhaps they normally would,” she added.

Artinian-Wong said she wants people to understand that the business community is a part of a vibrant King Township and to support them is to support everyone.

The King Chamber of Commerce has been working non-stop since March to help businesses as much as possible, said chamber president Angelo Santorelli.

Santorelli said the chamber wasn’t able to host or participate in the events it normally does because of the pandemic and therefore had to look for other ways to support the businesses in King Township.

One way the chamber helped is through changing the way it did its member directory this year by making it more comprehensive, Santorelli said.

“Small to medium sized businesses are really important to the community and for people to rely on,” he said.

One of the biggest barriers to the success of businesses in King Township is the uncertainty the pandemic has brought. The changing requirements, such as how many customers are allowed in their store or the safety precautions they need to take, has really affected small business, according to Santorelli.

“It’s really important to the community to have businesses open here rather than have to shop far away,” Santorelli said.