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"BUY LOCAL FIRST!" refers to a commitment to the community. Rather than simply
promoting "buying local," the campaign suggests our larger role as stewards. By
thinking local first, we can make choices that have dramatic impact on our
community, our economy, and our environment. While it will rarely be possible to
buy everything we need or use from local independent businesses, we are
advocating for people to first think local in order to maximize the impact of
daily actions and purchasing decisions.
Compared to national competitors, local independent businesses return more money
to the local economy and give greater support
to local non-profit organizations. They are better positioned to respond to the
special needs of the community and more invested in its future.
Local, independently owned businesses are the backbone of an economy, the
lifeblood of a community. By increasing the number of independent,
local-to-local economic transactions, we can:
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Support local entrepreneurs
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Sustain family businesses
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Create local jobs that stay in our community
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Have greater control over environmental impacts
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Increase sales and tax receipts to hopefully finance schools, hospitals, police,
arts, transportation, and open spaces
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Maintain a unique sense of place, directly contributing to what will
keep our home place alive and special in the long-run
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Maximize the economic multiplier (that means every
expenditure of a rand generates more than a rand's worth of activity and
cascades into a larger number of transactions that enrich the community).
Choosing local over non-local has 2-3 times more financial impact in our
community, promotes more reinvestment locally, creates quality jobs, and
encourages more donations to local charities and causes.
The Envirochild Initiative asks the community to be
supportive of local, independently owned businesses. This will help enhance
the local community, the stability and diversity of the local
economy, and support the retention and expansion of independent, locally
owned businesses through increasing awareness about the personal, community,
and economic benefits of choosing local first.
Why Buying Local Food Is Important
Buying local food strengthens the regional economy
and fosters community
growth
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Purchasing food that was grown and harvested locally
keeps money circulating within the community, keeping wealth in the region
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Buying local food
supports organic growers in the community
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Buying organic
hugely impacts on your health -
organic produce has on average 70% more
nutrition than commercially farmed produce, that
travels for miles to get to our supermarkets,
long after it was harvested.
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A strong local economy insulates the region from national
and global recessions
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Buying local food helps to reduce dependence on foreign
oil needed to ship food thousands of miles, thus cutting back on unnecessary
expense and pollution.
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