Local small businesses continue to be the bread and butter, the lifeline of Norwood’s economy. When you support Norwood’s local small business, your dollars stay within the community and you are helping to create development, innovation and growth.
Supporting Local Businesses Helps Nurture Norwood’s Innovation And Growth
It’s simple really, business is about survival of the fittest. In order for Norwood’s local businesses to thrive, they need to stand out from their competition, especially from businesses in neighboring communities as well as online. It’s support from you that allows Norwood’s businesses to strive and stand out from their competition. Your support allows them to become innovative entrepreneurs, community volunteers, and the biggest advocates for a better future for Norwood. Supporting these local business owners helps them lead the charge when it comes to conjuring up ideas for solutions to problems and creating new and unique products, services, and opportunities for businesses and residents alike.
Supporting Local Businesses Helps Norwood’s Businesses Give Back To The Community
Norwood’s local businesses play a significant role in supporting Norwood’s community by giving back to charities and causes. Norwood’s local businesses benefit from a strong community, therefore Norwood’s business owners tend to be more active members of the community. Your support allows them to volunteer their time, support various community organizations, and be the biggest donors to local causes, local non profits, charities and trusts, local youth organizations, local first responders, and local service groups.
Supporting Local Businesses Bring More Jobs And Helps Stimulate Norwood’s Economy
Norwood’s local workforce is the backbone of the community.
Businesses and organizations cannot survive without the ability to hire workers locally. The more jobs there are in Norwood, the less Norwood’s residents have to rely on finding work in neighboring towns such as Telluride, Ridgway, Naturita and Nucla and even Montrose. This means that you are helping to supply Norwood with a more sustainable workforce as businesses are able to offer higher, and more competitive wages, without the need for workers to commute. When you support local businesses, you are helping to create more job opportunities for local residents in and around Norwood, and helping local businesses keep their doors open.
You cycle money back into Norwood’s community.
No one wants to live in a town with crumbling infrastructure, right? The tax revenue generated through sales tax from local businesses supports Norwood’s government, which is reinvested back into the community to help keep the town’s infrastructure operational. The more sales tax revenue that is generated by Norwood’s local businesses, the more the town can improve its infrastructure, and the more opportunity local businesses have to grow and provide more goods and services for Norwood’s residents and visitors.
When you support a local small business, you are helping owners of local small businesses and their families keep a roof over their heads, food on the table, their children clothed, and helps them invest in their children’s education, sports, arts and extracurricular activities so they too may become future business owners and community leaders.
Your support of local businesses is an investment into the community as the multiplier effect kicks in. The cycle continues when local business owners themselves cycle money back into the community by supporting other local businesses, who in return support them.
Supporting Local Businesses Helps Reduce Norwood’s Carbon Footprint
Think about it, the less driving Norwood’s residents have to do, or the less products they have to order online, the less carbon footprint they leave behind.
Commuting for work
When it comes to jobs in Norwood. More job opportunities in Norwood equals fewer residents having to commute to neighboring towns for work. The less driving people do for work, the more positive their impact is on the environment and Norwood’s carbon footprint.
Shopping for goods and services
The same applies when it comes to shopping for goods and services. Being able to shop locally for just about everything Norwood’s residents need is essential for helping to reduce Norwood’s carbon footprint.
The “Montrose run” is a term most commonly used by people living in Norwood. The term basically means, taking a trip to the “big city” an hour or two away to shop and stock up on goods and seek services which cannot be found in Norwood, or can be found for a more affordable price at larger franchise and chain stores in the neighboring cities.
The benefit to the “Montrose run” is that generally, the prices on goods and services is much more affordable (despite the cost of driving), because prices have not been heavily marked up (in part due to the extra cost of transportation to more remote towns like Norwood). Supporting local businesses helps create demand for goods and services if local businesses wish to retain and attract more customers. It forces them to carry goods and offer services at competitive prices similar to that of their competition, and eliminates the need to travel for those goods and services.
On the flip side, with so many products and goods being available online, often priced much more affordably than can be found locally, many people have turned to shopping online for just about all of their needs. Have you ever placed a single order from an online retailer and your order was delivered in multiple boxes, or was delivered by two or three different trucks? While highly convenient for anyone living in remote areas such as Norwood, the delivery services themselves, with all the cardboard, plastic, foam or paper filing, and the oil and gas used to deliver products, are the exact opposite of what we would call “environmentally-friendly.”
But that doesn’t mean there isn’t a solution. The more you support your local small businesses, the more inclined they will be to provide the products and services you would like to to see, and the greater impact you and local businesses will have overall on Norwood’s carbon footprint.
Supporting Local Businesses Helps The Overall Health Of Norwood’s Community
Local farmers, ranchers and producers have a symbiotic relationship with local markets, grocers and food providers. Most often goods provided by local farmers, ranchers and producers are found at local markets, grocery stores and farmers markets. By shopping directly with Norwood’s local farmers, ranchers and producers, or shopping at Norwood’s local markets, grocers and food providers who offer produce grown locally, you are getting far better quality produce with much higher nutritional value than you would at chain or franchise grocery stores.
Shortly after being picked, fruits and vegetables nutritional value begin to diminish. Food that has been transported over long distances has less nutritional value than food grown locally because of the time it takes to travel. On average, food in the U.S. travels 1,500 miles to get to your plate, which means, by the time fruits and veggies travel across the country and land on your table, they have depleted a large percentage of the nutritional value they otherwise would have had if they were bought and consumed at peak freshness from local producers.
When you support Norwood’s local farmers, ranchers and producers, and shop at local markets grocers and food providers, you’re getting a far healthier and much tastier version of the same product found at a chain store, without the cost and carbon footprint that comes from shipping produce across the country.
To learn more about local and fresh food on Wright’s Mesa, and to find resources and information on local food in and around Norwood, here’s an article about Making Fresh Food Accessible For Wright’s Mesa Residents!
Click here to check out the Norwood Chamber’s local producers and grocery business members!