Together, DelCo Prospers
This initiative was a project formed from a concern that the COVID pandemic shut-downs were taking a terrible toll on our Delaware County businesses. It also had an isolating effect on our County’s citizens as people sheltered at home. We hoped to counter those effects by creating a safe means for people to come together and support businesses with their shopping dollars. In this way:
➙ Consumers of Delaware County could put Delaware County businesses first
➙ Large numbers of citizens from all across Delaware County could come together—once a month—and inject their shopping dollars at Delaware County small businesses that are struggling during these difficult times
➙ Hundreds of Delaware County consumers could travel locally into various Delco townships, boroughs, and cities to demonstrate the power of putting “DelCo Businesses First”
➙ Delaware County consumers created a movement to make sure our county businesses, run by county families, came first
Our proposition was simple, yet it had a profound impact in DelCo. We identified DelCo-based small businesses that needed our help. We recruited consumers to participate in one-day shopping blitzes at the designated DelCo-businesses. We put our money where it matters most: home.
This action only required that consumers sign up and show up en masse to purchase a pre-chosen meal, product, or service from our selected DelCo small businesses.
We began our project on the first day of Spring 2021. Our intent was to identify businesses all across the county and recruit consumers to collaborate with neighboring communities in cross-sectional activities. This was a non-partisan effort, created by DelCo residents who care about Delco small businesses. We didn’t have any hidden agendas or political backing. We care about the business fabric of our county. We’re simply a group of citizens who believe our Delco small businesses should be our priority.
As a consumer participant, sometimes you would go to another town; sometime your town would host. In difficult times like these, we needed to support our small businesses. They don’t have the power of the mega brands but they can get the mega support from those of us who care.
We enrolled about 300 people for this team to support Delaware County small businesses when they needed our help most. We sent troops to 6 restaurants in 6 different towns from March to September, 2001 to pick up pre-ordered, pre-paid meals, bringing about $2,000-$3,000 in additional sales to those businesses on a single day. After the COVID crisis abated to a large degree, businesses were rebounding and no longer needed our efforts so we brought the program to a close.
If you were one of the many people who participated, thank you and we hope you had a great time – we did! And the businesses you visited appreciated your business very much.
