Entities looking to keep your dollars in town this holiday season
(Seguin) – Tis the season to shop and shop local. Seguin’s unique and signature holiday campaign “Shop Local, Shop Seguin” is well on its way this holiday season.
Each year, the Seguin-Guadalupe County Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, the Seguin Area Chamber of Commerce, the Seguin Economic Development Corporation, the Seguin Main Street Program and the Downtown Business Association gather like clockwork the week before Thanksgiving to launch the annual slogan which encourages folks to spend their dollars in Seguin if and when at all possible.
Leading the charge this year for the Hispanic Chamber is director and business owner Mary Ann Smith. Smith says keeping those dollars local is important for any community especially a community like Seguin where everyone stands to benefit.
“Seguin is growing, and we want everybody to spend as much as they can in Seguin because that benefits all of us. Money that we spend in Seguin stays in Seguin. The taxes that we pay, they stay in Seguin so with this growth, we need all of us to help and it’s a campaign that we have had for many years, and it has always helped small businesses,” said Smith.
Storefronts will also include new signage highlighting the holiday campaign. Smith says the groups chose to do away with those yellow and red posters – replacing them with red, white, and black posters – that contain a heart and that reads, “Shop Where Your Heart Is – Shop Local Shop Seguin.”
“I think that if you love Seguin, you love your community, you have to spend where your heart is and that’s why we decided with this because I think that if we love our community, we have to encourage everyone to spend their money here, but it is true. I’ve seen it. I’ve seen it for many years. I’ve been here for many years, and I continuously see that if we stay local as much as we can, it will help all of us,” said Smith.
Also doing its part to encourage shopping in Seguin this holiday season is the Seguin Area Chamber of Commerce. President Chester Jenke says there’s plenty of good reasons to keep your dollars local.
“Here’s the top five reasons you should mark Shopping Small a priority. When you support a local business, you are also supporting your own town and city and a neighborhood. America’s 33.2 million small businesses account for more than 99 percent of all U.S. companies who employ almost half of the private sector employees. Small businesses give back to their community. You see that on the back of Little League jerseys. Small businesses make it easier for you to shop with them and small businesses offer one-of-a-kind items,” said Jenke.
To help promote the effort, Jenke says the chamber features the uniqueness of many of its local businesses not only during the holiday season but all year long.
“If you follow our social media presence, you will see that we are highlighting different businesses in different months. This is Small Business Month and if you will for us, we’ll have different small business every Monday, Wednesday, Friday for the next two weeks and then Monday, Wednesday, Friday all the way through that Christmas time to highlight somebody in the downtown area,” said Jenke.
Applauding the annual effort to bridge all efforts is Kyle Kramm, the director of the Seguin Main Street and CVB.
“Seguin is very unique in the fact that it has the chamber, the Hispanic chamber, EDC and also Main Street and our Visitors Center all come together to promote the shopping local and shopping Seguin especially around the holiday time – trying to really push that message through. It’s a very good partnership of the four or five entities that come together every year to really promote keeping your dollars here in Seguin and helping our mom-and-pop businesses,” said Kramm.
Businesses wishing to promote the signage in their storefronts are asked to pick up a poster at either the Hispanic Chamber office located at 971 W. Court St or at Su Casa Café at 1142 E. Kingsbury.
