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Why Buy Local?
Why Spend Your Money at Gorge Businesses?
There are a TON of reasons to spend your hard earned dollars in the Gorge. Let's take a look at a few key reasons why you should support local businesses:
Money spent at local businesses stays in the Gorge. These dollars then recirculate and help strengthen the community. How you ask?
For starters, local spending helps maintain current jobs held by yourself, your friends and your neighbors. It creates NEW jobs as well! Without jobs, people would have to look elsewhere thus creating an unstable community.
Second, local spending creates a stronger tax base. Yeah, who wants to hear about taxes right? An unhappy topic with most, but necessary. Who do you call if your house is on fire? The Fire Department! How is the Fire Dept. funded? TAX DOLLARS! Who do you call when a crime is in progress? The police! Who funds that? TAX DOLLARS! That nagging pothole in your street? It's not going to go away on it's own. Tax dollars help fix that by employing city/county employees which yes, are paid for by the taxes that our area generates. The list goes on and on...
Third, you may not know this but local business owners invest in our community. Ever had a kid in little league baseball? As you probably know, most teams are sponsored by a local business. Retired State Farm Insurance agent Doug Sawyer was instrumental for MANY years in helping support The Dalles Little League by sponsoring many teams/functions. County fairs, parades, festivals, etc. are all made possible by sponsorships offered by local businesses. Without their help, none of these functions would be possible.
Fourth, local businesses provide a good variety of shopping options. Many small businesses offer unique one of a kind type of offerings. In an increasingly corporate big box store world, communities that preserve their one-of-a-kind businesses and distinctive character have an advantage in offering quality of life and unique experiences. Can you imagine how boring our town would be if you had nothing but generic/vanilla national big-name department stores to shop at?
Fifth, you actually save money by shopping locally, even if the price tag on an item is more expensive! When you factor in the fuel expense/wear and tear on your vehicle, you're losing money by shopping outside of our local economy. Not to mention, shopping locally saves you time!
Sixth, you're promoting a "green" lifestyle. Shopping locally reduces your gas consumption and pollution.
There are many more benefits of shopping local not listed here. Please consider spending your hard earned dollars in your community to help maintain and build an even better Gorge for ALL of us!
