Partnership urges buyers to ‘think local’

During November, the Greater Poplar Bluff Area Chamber of Commerce is partnering with city and county officials on a special campaign encouraging customers to “think local” with their buying.

“The theme is ‘think local, support your neighbors, and in turn, hopefully they will support you,’” said Chamber President Steve Halter.

The idea emerged from “continued efforts to try to get people to spend their money locally,” Halter explained.

The chamber, he said, is partnering with the City of Poplar Bluff and the Butler County Commission for the event.

“People are always contacting me and City Manager Matt Winters and our three county commissioners about things they want to see happen in the community … fix a pothole, add a stoplight here, whatever, and those things just aren’t possible if you are spending all of your money online because we get zero tax dollars from money spent online,” Halter said. “I think they don’t understand that.”

The people who have local restaurants, shops, dentist/doctor offices are “our neighbors, our friends, are our kids’ friends’ parents, people we go to church with,” Halter said. “We should be supporting each other.”

Describing a holiday open house next weekend as a “wonderful promotion,” Halter said, it “just effects the small gift shops. We want to expand this to include all our locally-owned chamber member businesses.”

Purchases may be made at any locally-owned business, whether it is “services, goods or a restaurant,” he said. “We just want people to” spend locally.

Anyone spending $50 at a locally-owned chamber member during the month of November, Halter said, is eligible for a $250 gift certificate each week.

“How they enter, they go to our event page on Facebook, and they post a photo of their receipt on the event page under the discussion tab,” Halter said. “The drawings will be every Friday in November, the 6th, 13th, 20th and 27th.”

For those not sure which businesses are chamber members, Halter said, a list can be found on the chamber’s website at poplarbluffchamber.org .

“The majority of the businesses are chamber members in our community, so it should be pretty easy,” Halter said. “If you’re not sure a business is locally owned, just ask them or send us a message or submit the receipt, and we’ll make the determination.

“Most people know, Menards, places like that, are not locally owned; the national chains aren’t.”

What’s most important, “we really want people to think about spending their money at businesses in our town instead of online,” Halter said. “We know people are going to buy online; you’re not going to stop that.”

Halter thinks a lot of businesses have been accommodating to their customers during the pandemic, whether through take-out or curb-side service.

“More and more are adapting,” he said.