Our Opinion: Shop locally: Experience the advantages

Reflecting a Christmas tradition, shopping locally involves both giving and receiving.

Shoppers who patronize local merchants experience the advantages of personal service while assisting both the local economy and local governments.

Local shoppers are able to see the precise color, feel the texture and compare sizes of merchandise. In addition to personal service, local merchants support our local churches and charities.

Other benefits to the community were voiced in a Wednesday News Tribune article by Carrie Tergin, mayor of Jefferson City and a downtown merchant.

"When you're shopping local, you're directly impacting in a positive way payroll going to the owners and the staff of small businesses," Tergin said.

In Jefferson City and Cole County, capital improvements and other essential services depend on sales tax revenue.

"Anytime you can shop locally you're keeping our roads and infrastructure going," Tergin added. "A lot of the small businesses then are in turn utilizing local companies ... when it comes to things like expansions. That dollar that you put into a local business, it gets circulated back through the community."

To highlight the value of shopping locally, area businesses again this year will participate in Small Business Saturday this weekend.

Now in its fifth year locally, 31 businesses will participate this year, an increase from 22 last year.

As part of the event, each participating business will offer an in-store promotion and take part in a drawing where shoppers can win gift cards that can be used at participating merchants.

Donna Deetz, organizer of Small Business Saturday here and owner of two local businesses, said shoppers on Saturday "can enter at every store, so they've got lots of chances to win depending on how many stores they go to. We'll combine all of the entries, and then on Monday we'll draw the names."

Those promotions provide added advantages for customers who shop locally.

A vibrant community is founded on a variety of strong institutions, including governments, businesses, schools churches, charitable organizations and more.

And the strengths of those institutions are the people who support them.

This Christmas season, we encourage area residents to support our community by shopping locally.