Stouffville residents urged to support local businesses this Christmas

Take a stroll down Main Street for some shopping

Yorkregion.com
Dec. 3
Simon Martin

Instead of going to Amazon this year, Stouffville business leaders are asking residents to do what they can to shop local.

The Stouffville Chamber of Commerce has been busy this year trying to get residents to visit the various businesses in town. After COVID-19 struck, chamber executive director Karen Wootton said the chamber launched Facebook groups Stouffville Restaurants Open and Stouffville Shop Local to try and help local businesses get their message out.

“It has been a very tough year for businesses,” Wootton said. “The small retailers and the restaurants are all suffering. They are not sure how they are going to make rent.”

While it may be easier than ever to do your Christmas shopping on Amazon, Wootton said, it's important to get creative. “Look locally and see how you can just replace a couple of purchases with something local,” she said. “We have some really wonderful stores that are downtown.”

Wootton also suggested committing to eating out or getting takeout from a local restaurant once a week. What Wootton is hearing from local businesses is a broken record. “My sales are down, but my overheard is still the same,” she said. “Some have good landlords, some have not-so-good landlords.”

Vice-chair of the chamber Sonya Torres works in the real estate business, which hasn’t been impacted by COVID-19 like Main Street retail and restaurants have been. Torres said it’s important to do what you can, like taking a stroll down Main Street and buying some gifts or ordering takeout from your favourite restaurant.

“We want to support local now so that in a year from now there are places to go here,” she said. “We don’t want to see a whole bunch of locations boarded up. We want all of our favourite places to be here.”

You might have noticed some signs around town with the hashtag #SkiptheApps Powered by Neighbours. That is part of a town initiative to try and get residents to order takeout from local restaurants, said David Tuley, Stouffville's economic development officer.

The tag "Powered by Neighbours" is the shop-local brand the town is now promoting, with the idea that the community is powered by volunteers and the business community.

The first campaign under the Powered by Neighbours banner is entitled “What’s for Dinner” and carries the hashtag #SkiptheApps. Local restaurants are being encouraged to register daily lunch and dinner specials on the L4A.ca website calendar. When it is dinner time and you are trying to figure out what to eat and who to support, just go onto the calendar.

One innovative community volunteer partnership that is just getting off the ground is a low-cost food delivery service for restaurants. Executive director of the Hummingbird Hub Laura Cusack had the idea of using volunteer drivers, administered through Routes Connecting Communities, to help small restaurants avoid high-cost apps like UberEats and SkipTheDishes.

20 volunteer drivers have already come forward, and Cusack said she would love to see more.

Fickle Pickle Restaurant has already signed up for the service, and it has been operating for a week with great success, Cusack said. Routes charge $2 per order for administrative fees, and the driver get 50 cents per kilometre.

“There are a lot of people out there willing to support local businesses but don’t know how,” Cusack said. “If this takes off and restaurants like (it), there is no reason it has to end.”  

While Fickle Pickle is the only restaurant that has signed up for the low-cost delivery option so far, Cusack hopes more will sign up soon.

“It is going to be a pretty bleak winter if we don’t support each other,” Cusack said.

L4A.ca is a website the town created earlier this year to help the community find and support local businesses that are open and providing their products and services to Stouffville.