Membership in any Good Drop wine club also carries special privileges including:
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Guest Post Often people ask me about why it's important to shop locally. There are so many reasons to shop locally, that sometimes I'm overwhelmed trying to from a complete and full-picture answer, so I thought I'd take a few moments this morning to put all of my thoughts and feelings about shopping locally into words.
“Going local means nurturing locally owned businesses which use local resources sustainably, employ local workers at decent wages and serve local consumers. It means becoming more self-sufficient and less dependent on imports. Control moves from the boardrooms of distant corporations and back into the community where it belongs.” – Michael H. Shuman, author of the book Going Local. Here are some of my values that I choose to vote for with my dollar:
#1 - I don't shop with companies like Amazon, because I don't believe that one man should make $321 million per day while others only make $58 per day. To me, this inequity is not the foundation of the country I want to build, or the 'better tomorrow' that I want to create. When I spend my money at a plethora of small local businesses in my community, I am actively contributing to the distribution of wealth. This allows me to feel good because I am living in alignment with my core values. #2 - I am enamored with entrepreneurship. The fact that someone, anyone, can open a small business doing what they love and make a living doing it is delightful. I believe we need more passion in this world - more people doing what they love to do. This is why I spend my money locally - to support someone's dream, someone's passion. I think that when more people do the things they love to do that it creates a better world for all of us.
#4 - Being a good steward of our planet and resources. When I spend my money locally, I feel good because I know that local businesses make more local purchases, not only does this continue to help the local economy, but less transportation is required. In turn, I'm contributing less to pollution, traffic congestion, habitat loss and resource depletion. #5 - We need each other. I believe that connection matters to our health and wellness. I believe that we can not thrive alone. All of the tiny human interactions in a day impact the people that we are. The way someone greets you, a smile from a clerk at the market, shared laughter, a joke, a story, a meeting of eyes - it ALL MATTERS. When we shop local we build local connections, which in turn builds our inner sense of wellbeing, and well as the fostering that same wellbeing in the community. Shopping local is good for our heatlh.  Written by Mindy Amita Aisling, Executive Director of the DBBA.
Long-time entrepreneur and previous business coach, Mindy brings years of expertise to the Downtown Bend Business Association, where she's been in service to the Downtown Bend community since 2015. In her free time, Mindy loves long backpacking adventures, challenging mountaineering trips, playing board games with friends, listening to live music, competing in bar trivia, and like any good Bendite - drinking craft beer. The views expressed in this post do not necessarily reflect the views of the DBBA.
 Unfortunately we had to cancel our Wreath Spruce-up Ball due to the increasing numbers of COVID19. This event would have allowed a group of volunteers to come together and beautify the wreaths that hang in Downtown Bend. As many of us have had to do in a multititle of ways since COVID19, this was a quick plot shift and the DBBA had to shift gears quickly to find a way to get a plethora of wreaths cleaned, fluffed, and redecorated quickly so that they could be installed in Downtown Bend. DBBA Staff and Board rallied together to make this happen. This included board and staff taking wreaths home to complete the job. We'd like to give a big shout-out to aos Skincare and Spa and The Wine Shoppe in Downtown Bend - two businesses and board members who really came to the rescue - taking lots of wreaths home to decorate and bring back to be installed in Downtown Bend. This year we've worked to transform the the decorations to a Winter theme - including solar-paneled warm white fairy lights. Our hopes is that this will allow us to keep the wreaths up longer (into Jan, Feb and March) when we're still experiencing a lot of darkness and snow in Downtown Bend. Let us know what you think when your shopping and dining in Downtown Bend!
Coal Headwear is crafted for adventure seekers. Since 2002, Coal has produced high quality beanies, hats, and technical accessories for the outdoors. Shop for this item, and lots of other great things at Revolvr online: www.revolvrmens.com As temperatures began to dip (and we even saw a bit of snow!), the DBBA continued to work hard to keep downtown running ship-shape! This week we'd like to talk a little bit about our daily work, that often doesn't get noticed. We like to feature special projects that we are working on in these updates, but much of the work that we do is done daily. For example, we provide excellent everyday customer service - this means that we answer questions and provide guidance - responding to phone calls, emails, website forms and (in non-COVID times) office drop-by's to help drive traffic into Downtown Bend. This includes answering questions about directions, parking, specific businesses, products, restaurants, and all sorts of other things. In some ways, we operate as Downtown's visitor's center. We also provide marketing for Downtown Bend every single day. This means posts on our social media, engagement and comment management on social media & content creation for all of our platforms. We also do 100% of our website management in-house, and we are working every day to improve our website and better reflect our businesses and downtown community. On-the-street cleaning, litter-removal, sidewalk sweeping, graffiti and sticker removal, and business safety checks are all services that we perform every single day, 365 days per year. And that's not all - we also run the Downtown Dollars program every day - issuing, mailing and delivering Downtown Dollar gift certificates to keep money flowing into our Downtown. With a staff of only 2.5 people, we accomplish a tremendous amount of work. All of these daily services are provided plus special projects, events, decorations, advocacy and more! The Downtown Bend Business Association is committed to increasing the vitality of Downtown Bend!  Much of our time and energy this week was spent launching our Small Business Passport Event and collecting and creating prize baskets for the winners. This event takes an abundance of labor to put together and make possible, but we are happy to report that it has officially been launched and we are excited to see people in downtown getting their passports stamped. We can't wait to raffle off our six prize baskets with amazing products and gift cards from our local merchants. The raffle will take place on Small Business Saturday, November 28th, 2020. We would like to thank all of our participating merchants who made this event possible.  Unfortunately we had to cancel our Wreath Spruce-up Ball due to the increasing numbers of COVID19. This event would have allowed a group of volunteers to come together and beautify the wreaths that hang in Downtown Bend. As many of us have had to do in a multititle of ways since COVID19, this was a quick plot shift and the DBBA had to shift gears quickly to find a way to get a plethora of wreaths cleaned, fluffed, and redecorated so that they could be installed in Downtown Bend. DBBA Staff and Board rallied together to make this happen. This included board and staff taking wreaths home to complete the job. We'd like to give a big shout-out to aos Skincare and Spa and The Wine Shoppe in Downtown Bend - two businesses and board members who really came to the rescue - taking wreaths home to decorate and then bringing them back to be installed in Downtown Bend. Thank you!  This week, we were also happy to provide all of our merchants the opportunity to advertise at a discounted rate in the The Downtown Bend Holiday Gift Guide in The Source. Every year we provide this service, and it always creates a great booklet that features the best of Downtown Bend. Working with local advertisers to get great rates for our businesses is one of the services we love to offer. DBBA staff also often puts on their 'sales' hats to sell advertising (whether it's in a publication, on a kiosk, for an event, or for our banner program). We are committed to not only finding & providing the best rates to promote our Downtown businesses, but also in increasing DBBA streams of revenue to supplement our EID funding.  We also prepared for winter snow removal in Downtown Bend by getting our snow blowers into the shop to have their regular maintenance completed, making sure that all of our snow shovels, & supplies were ready to go and stocking up on necessities like ice melt! In the photo on the left you can see DBBA staff removing snow by the fountain on the corner of Lava and Minnesota in Downtown Bend. The DBBA has two snow blowers, and ATV with a snow plow and a plethora of snow shovels to make sure that downtown sidewalks stay clear no matter how much snow falls. The DBBA's mission is to increase the vitality of Downtown Bend!
 Great Harvest Bread Co. in Downtown Bend wants to make people smile and look forward to some happy things for the holidays! For the month of November they are hosting a coloring contest! When people bring their colored page to the bakery they will get a free shortbread cookie. All of the coloring entries will be hung up in the bakery. It's open to all ages, winners will receive 2 free loaves of bread and a goody sampler box (worth $50) All entries must be received by Tuesday, Nov 24th...winner will be chosen wed Nov 25th.
  In July of 2013, Jon & Christine Davis opened up the doors for the "Soft Opening" of Revolvr Menswear in Bozeman, Montana. It was a concept they weren't sure would work; they had heard over and over from friends that a men's-only clothing store wouldn't succeed. Well, it was a huge hit that night, and the next morning they were on the phone ordering more inventory to fill the store. Word spread and sales continued to climb, and by March of 2015 they opened the second location in Bend, Oregon. It was another void that needed to be filled in the town and the store was an instant hit. Visit Revolvr Menswear, try some local beer, relax, and prepare to look damn good.
This year you can SHOP SMALL and be entered to WIN BIG for three entire weeks!
Between Saturday 11/7 and Saturday 11/28:
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