Don’t forget to stop by this fun shop local event
The Selkirk Biz is bringing back its annual Black Friday Weekend and everyone is invited to participate. The weekend of shopping fun is taking place on Nov. 24, 25 and 26 and along with promoting keeping our dollars in our community by shopping local, there will be prizes up for grabs.
“[The way it works is] we have a passport, and you can pick them up at a local business. You go in and get a stamp on your passport, and then you get entered to win some prizes. It’s a good way to go out and shop local and possibly earn yourself a prize,” said Executive Director of the Selkirk Biz Alice Skalesky.
Black Friday as a shopping day comes about every year and is the Friday after American Thanksgiving. Though this event takes its name from the original event which sees stores put out pre-holiday sales, the Biz puts this event on so that people are reminded of all the great shopping that you can do without travelling.
“We are just trying to take advantage of a good opportunity to encourage people to shop locally, because a lot of people will go to, say, Winnipeg to shop at those bigger stores, but they might be more inclined to shop locally now that they have a little more incentive,” said Skalesky.
The prizes though not finalized this early in the month are often donated from the same businesses that participate in the Black Friday Weekend event so you know that you’re getting quality local items.
The way to participate in the Black Friday Event is to first get a passport from one of the participating businesses.
“Every business that is able to stamp a passport will also have the passports available. So you can go into any of the businesses. Grab the passport. And then, you can get one stamp per card per business,” said Skalesky.
You don’t even need to make a purchase to get your passport stamped and when it’s full you can hand it in to get entered into the prize draw.
Skalesky explained that by using the passport the businesses in our area benefit because people that might frequent some local businesses might not go to all of those involved. It’s a good excuse to stop somewhere new and see what they have to offer.
Frequenting and making the decision to spend at these local businesses is also beneficial to residents because it’s these businesses that donate and support our local community groups.
“A lot of these people are your friends or relatives or people you grew up with. It’s nice to be giving your money back to somebody that you actually know and not some rich person from outside of the province,” said Skalesky
She welcomes anyone who wants to participate.
“[It doesn’t take] very long to go and get some stamps and you might find a cool new business you might want to shop that,” said Skalesky.
Keep up with the Selkirk Biz and learn more in the coming weeks at https://www.facebook.com/SelkirkBiz/ or on their website at https://selkirkbiz.ca/
