Choose Local First – it matters!
Our quality of life and local economy rely on where you receive your services and do your shopping. Help make your dollars work for Chehalis and Centralia. Grab dinner in town. Have your car repaired locally. Think local before shopping online. You’d be surprised what a difference that can make!
Top 10 Reasons to Choose Local First
- Build Community! Casual encounters and friendly conversations at our local businesses and around town make us feel connected to one another.
- Strengthen our Local Economy! Each dollar you spend at independent businesses returns three times more money to your local economy – a benefit we all can bank on. The more dollars we can re-circulate in our community, the more we are reinvesting in ourselves!
- Shape our Character! Where we shop, dine and have fun – all of it shapes our community’s distinct personality and character.
- Local Sales Tax Dollars Support our Services! Sales tax generated from shopping local is an important funding source supporting essential city services such as police, parks and recreation programs, and road maintenance – for starters.
- Enhance Choices! A wide variety of local businesses, each serving their customers’ tastes, creates greater overall choice for all of us. And local businesses offer a wider array of uniquely focused products because they buy and sell based on what they know local customers want and need, creating more relevant choices.
- Create Jobs and Opportunities! Local businesses are the largest employer nationally per dollar of revenue, and they are customers of other local businesses and services. Small businesses employ over half of the American workforce!
- Find Knowledgeable Customer Service! Local business owners offer great personal service because they are often more interested in getting to know their fellow community members and have a high level of expertise and passion for the products they offer.
- Give Back to our Community! Local businesses donate more than twice as much per sales dollar to our local non-profits, events, and teams.
- Increase Wealth of Residents! Research shows more locally-owned businesses means greater per capita income growth.
- Enhance Local Democracy! Local businesses with roots in our community help shape decisions in our community.