Mesquite Celebrates ‘Small Business Saturday’

By VERNON ROBISON

Moapa Valley Progress

After the frantic and hurried experience of Black Friday shopping in urban big box stores, local shoppers were able to slow down the pace a little, and enjoy the small town service, with a “Small Business Saturday” elebration in Mesquite on Nov. 30.

The Mesquite Chamber of Commerce made a community event of the nation-wide celebration of small main street shops and local businesses.

Chamber staffers, dressed in festive Santa’s Elf costumes, set up a table on the sidewalk outside of the Front Porch Flowers and Gifts on Mesquite Blvd. Local shoppers could drop by and sign up to participate, receive a free shopping bag, information about local shops and a special passport booklet for the event.

The passport booklet had blank spaces displaying logos for a total of 17 area businesses that had signed up to participate in the Small Business Saturday event. Shoppers could take their passport booklets around town stopping at each of the 17 shops and receive a stamp at each one.

Once their passport books were filled with stamps, participants could return them to a special drop box located in the UPS Store on Pioneer Blvd. in Mesquite.

Each of these books could then be entered into a drawing for more than $700 in gift cards, gift certificates and other prizes donated by local vendors and individuals.

Around 60 local residents participated in the event on Saturday. The Chamber staff got things set up at 9 am and within a few minutes, a line of participants had already assembled in front of the table seeking instructions for the event..

“We were pleased with the turnout this year,” said Mesquite Chamber of Commerce CEO/President Carol Kolson. “It is just a great way to reintroduce local shoppers to the stores and vendors that work so hard to service our area. We felt like it was a great success.”

Local business owners reported that it had been a busy day and that Small Business Saturday event had brought people into their doors.

The Front Porch owner Charlene Udall was excited about the traffic it brought to her store.
“It was a great idea!” Udall said. “The Chamber President and the board has been so supportive in giving a boost to small business in town. We have had a good crowd of people coming through the shop all throughout the morning. It has been great!”

In addition to The Front Porch, the tour of shops included Hole Foods Bakery, La de’ Paws, Mesquite Ace Hardware, Desert Oasis Spa and Salon, the Boutique at Stephen’s Hair, Stitch N Scrap, CBD American Shaman, Bliss Salon and Spa, Chicago Greek, Coyote Willows Golf Course, Danielle’s Chocolates and Popcorn, Animal Farm True Value, In Cycles, Tina Skin Diva, Auntie Jayne’s and Rooster Cottage Consignment. Purchases at the stores were not necessary to receive the stamps.

At the end of the day, The UPS Store personnel said that they had seen a steady flow of participants come through the store to enter their passports into the drop box.

The UPS Store Manager Toynet Sharp said that participants she had spoken to had said that it ahd been a fun journey through small local businesses.
“Some people said that they had discovered a lot of stores in town that they didn’t even know about before,” Sharp said.

Prizes and gift cards for the drawing were donated by Chamber board members Adam Anderson, Bryan Baird, Claudia Carlsen, Donna Eads, Richard Gutierrez, Christi Neff, Jeff Powell, Jean Watkins, Mark Whetzel and Carol Kolson. Other prizes were donated by Danielle’s Chocolates and Popcorn, Desert Oasis Spa and Salon, Sun City Mesquite and Stitch N Scrap.

“We appreciate all that donated prizes, all of the local business participants and all of the shoppers that came out to make this another success,” Kolson said.

Small Business Saturday is a nationwide initiative sponsored by American Express. It began in 2010 in the midst of the recession as a way to encourage people to bring more holiday shopping to small businesses. It has continued to build momentum every year since then. Over the nine years since its beginnings, the event has brought an estimate of $103 billion in holiday spending to the main street businesses of America, according to American Express.