During our time of isolation, the phrase “support your local” was sited alot, you could almost say it was the catch phrase of COVID-19 after Stay Home and Stay Healthy.
It goes to show that communities really do rally behind one another during a time of crisis and I think most people did their part to ‘support their local’ business during what was a crazy time. The term ‘local’ by definition means to refer to ones area or neighbourhood. Given our restrictions to our ‘neighbourhood’, local people really got to know their local businesses and most showed strength in numbers and frequency to support them. As we couldn’t travel far, we had to look at what services were around us and utilise them, which created a stronger sense of community.
Whilst some businesses had to sadly close their doors during quarantine, others took advantage of the situation and sort out how they could pivot or add to the current business structures. Cafe’s that only opened for breakfast and lunch adapted to take away food, restaurants quickly saw the value in frozen and fresh take home meals, retailers who hadn’t previously had an online store swiftly had one set up and launched and many service providers moved their client connections to online meetings. Delivery services were increased and everyone adapted to their new world. Whilst it did take a few weeks, most people settled into the new reality and were able to see the silver lining in it.
After 9 weeks of isloation, everyone is ready to come back out into the world and businesses can’t wait to resume business not as normal, but a step closer to normal as possible. Business owners have missed their customers/ clients and vice versa. In a lot of cases, closer relationships have been built and a lot of people will have a different outlook when it comes to buying and living local.
Live local, buy local, be local – it’s all about belonging to an area, supporting those in your area and being part of your ‘local’ community! Everyone should be congratulated on how they ‘supported their locals’ and we all hope this mindset continues and our communities grow even stronger in the future.
