No kidding: Support your local businesses and organizations

As noted in The Lakeville Journal and Millerton News front page articles leading in to a readership survey this month, The Lakeville Journal Company has diminishing revenues that have led to a reevaluation of the way we do business. The surveys returned will give us some guidance in how we proceed, but so will our own assessments of the best ways to serve our readers after having done this for decades. To reassure some of our readers who expressed concern on this point, we won’t throw all our knowledge into the wind. We also understand that diminishing advertising can only be solved to a point, and that point is to where local advertisers, who provide the vast majority of our income, can afford it. After all, we want them to survive and thrive in order to keep our region vibrant. 

We would like, therefore, to acknowledge that this little media company is not experiencing challenges as a local and locally based business in a vacuum. It’s harder than ever right now, due to a diminishing year-round population and the convenience of online buying, among other things, for shops and businesses in our small towns to thrive. It’s not a problem with any one simple solution, but that shouldn’t stop us from trying.

This newspaper is supportive of the business groups in our coverage areas, all of which give support and inspiration, as well as camaraderie, to those who try to make their local businesses and organizations survive in the Tri-state region. There are numerous such groups, including the Tri-State Chamber of Commerce (for which, in full disclosure, two of The Lakeville Journal staff serve as board members), the Northwest Chamber of Commerce, the Kent Chamber of Commerce, the Millerton Business Group and the Harlem Valley Chamber of Commerce. These groups work tirelessly, with mainly volunteer members, to find ways to attract tourism to the region and encourage local buying. Their work deserves gratitude and support in that it strives to maintain the vibrant yet still comfortable and relaxing feel in our region’s town centers. 

It may not seem obvious to everyone who visits or lives in the area that supporting local merchants can make a monumental difference to their longevity. After all, if they’ve been around for a while, they will always be there, right? Wrong. Because they all need to keep up with their expenses, week to week and month to month, from mortgages and rent to payroll and trash disposal, and none of those expenses have gone down in the past 10 years. Rather, they have increased. But raising prices to cover those increases is never welcome to our permanent rural population, or even to our part-time or visiting residents.

Small Business Saturday is coming on Nov. 30, but don’t wait for that to forego another Amazon order and look around at your neighbors’ shops to see what you can find. Keeping more money in the local economy will mean sustaining not only local business, but also our communities, improving the quality of life for all of us who live, work or visit here.