By KATIE V. JONES
For three years, Laurel’s Department of Economic and Community Development has sponsored a small business passport program to encourage people to shop local on Small Business Saturday. This year’s event was on Nov. 28.
The passport program, which had shoppers visiting businesses to get stamps to qualify for a prize, ended Dec. 6. The meaning of the initiative lives on.
“In my mind, small businesses provide flavor to a town,” Councilmember Adrian Simmoms (Ward 1) said during an interview on Nov. 28. Simmons was at the Quill lot, where passports were being handed out. “You only find the small businesses in the town they are in. Go out there and patronize them.”
Heidi Furr, manager of Crystal Fox on Main Street, was thankful for the city’s small business passport program.
“It gets you to come out and support small businesses,” she said. “It brings the community together.”
Furr said she’d already stamped several passport books and had encouraged shoppers to visit other local businesses that were participating in the program.
Cassandra Quandt, of Laurel, said she was happy to get her family out of the house to shop.
“I haven’t been here in a year or two,” she said, as she was leaving Crystal Fox. “I came here in high school. It is a fun little store.”
Small businesses, “keep the world running” and provide a “hometown feeling,” according to Cindy Senter, who owns The Chamber Room with her husband, Paul Clites, on Main Street
“I like my customers, every single one of them. They’re good people,” Senter said. She’s been managing her gift store, which is filled with swords, figurines, dreamcatchers and more, for 24 years.
“We’re a ‘want’ thing. When you want something, you come here,” Senter, who is known for offering customers homemade cookies while they shop, said. “We will work very hard to find what you are looking for.”
But she admitted business can be challenging.
“It’s tough. There’s not a lot of foot traffic,” she said. “You have to be established. People who know you and love you. Word of mouth is phenomenal.”
While Gladley’s Candy Kitchen has been making candy on Main Street for several years, its focus had only been online sales.It recently reopened a small retail store. According to owner Chuck Begin, small businesses like his offer a personalized experience.
“Everything is made here,” said Begin, of his homemade caramels, cookies and chocolate confections. “I have a very loyal customer base.”
“The heartbeat of the city is small businesses,” Monta Burrough, the city’s economic and community development director, said, as he greeted people at the Quill Lot on Nov. 28. “We want to emphasize how important they are.”
