The Chestermere Chamber of Commerce is encouraging residents to shop local through the Festival of Trade.
“There are so many reasons to shop local. It reduces your environmental impact, helps local businesses to thrive, it encourages innovation, and it allows you to get to know who you are buying from,” said the Chestermere Chamber of Commerce Executive Assistant, Steven Burness.
Until July 16, local businesses will be offering a discount or promotion to encourage residents to shop local and support small businesses.
“The hope is that these discounts will entice our residents to local businesses and ultimately like what they see and perhaps become regular customers,” Burness said.
“We wanted to support our local businesses, as well as celebrate the end of provincial restrictions, while still being careful not to encourage people to crowd together inside,” Burness said.
Adding, “Ultimately, we realized that some people may feel that it is too soon for a physical event with all of the businesses represented in one place, so we opted to go with a different model. We felt it would be better to bring the customers to the individual businesses.”
The ultimate goal of the Festival of Trade is to help local businesses get back on their feet after a year of COVID-19 closures, reduced capacity, debt load, and operational challenges.
“Many local businesses were struggling to stay afloat, and some, unfortunately, didn’t make it. We want to do our best to make sure the businesses in Chestermere don’t go through that again, and we are hopeful that these first two weeks of July will help,” Burness said.
The Chestermere Chamber of Commerce is continuing to reach out to businesses for participation in the Festival of Trade and has received an overwhelming amount of support from business owners.
“The local business owners have really embraced this idea and they all work so hard so that we can have these goods and services here in our city,” Burness said.
To see what businesses are participating in the Festival of Trade visit, chestermerechamber.com/festival.
“We will keep adding more businesses as they express interest, so make sure to check back every few days,” Burness said.
“It is only for 16 days, and we want as much participation from citizens and businesses as possible,” he said.
The promotions and discounts extend to anyone who steps into the business, anyone living in Calgary, Langdon, Strathmore, or the surrounding areas can take advantage of the deals.
