Shop Local Challenge under way

In making another plea to residents to shop locally, the city of Vandalia and Greater Fayette County Chamber of Commerce is also asking shoppers to help them in their efforts to enhance the local business community.

Amber Daulbaugh, the city’s director of economic development, told the Vandalia City Council that the Shop Local Challenge was kicked off earlier in the day.
Through the challenge, the city and chamber are asking local residents to use a challenge list on which they list items that they are unable to purchase in Vandalia, as well as where they go to buy them.
Those residents who participate will be eligible to win gift cards provided by local businesses.
The city and chamber are joining with the American Express Neighborhood Champion Program for Small Business Saturday and the Shop Small Movement.
In addition to asking residents to use the Shop Local Challenge lists – which are available at city hall and at the city’s Shop Local Challenge page on Facebook – the city and chamber have mailed out letters to about 500 Fayette County businesses in which they ask those businesses to participate in the Shop Local project. (A copy of the Shop Local Challenge is on page 2 of this issue.)
In that letter, the city and chamber ask the business owner to fill out and return a registration form, and encourage them to use provide promotional and marketing tools to help publicize the Shop Local Challenge at their business and on their Facebook pages.
Completed lists can be turned in at city hall or at the Shop Small Kickoff Breakfast on Saturday morning, Nov. 24, at Fayette County Hospital.
“We are really focusing on the efforts of shopping local,” Daulbaugh said during Monday’s city council meeting.
“We want to engage and involve the community in helping us to identify, recruit and secure potential businesses to enhance the community’s quality of life,” Daulbaugh said.