Gather Locally

The counterpart to Black Friday, the sixth-annual Small Business Saturday encourages people all over the country to celebrate and support small businesses the Saturday after Thanksgiving. Founded six years ago in response to small business owners’ most pressing need – getting more customers during the busy holiday shopping season – Small Business Saturday has quickly earned its’ stripes among holiday traditions. Why not think about visiting Old Oakland, Uptown or Downtown Oak

Spread The Local Love... Thanksgiving is next week and after that is the official holiday shopping season. What better way to kick off the season than to hit the streets for Plaid Friday on November 27th. Plaid Friday was conceived by Kerri Johnson, now owner of Marion & Rose’s Workshop in Old Oakland, when she was looking for a way to get small businesses together to promote shopping local during the holidays. It is the colorful, local alternative to Black Friday — a celeb

Remembering to shop locally can be hard. We’re all so used to buying things at our tried and true big box stores or the websites that are conveniently bookmarked in our browsers. But we should shop locally because by doing so, we keep our neighborhoods healthy and strong. Of the everyday items that we pick up running errands each week, almost all could be purchased at a local independent retailer. And for every $100 we spend locally, $68 will stay in our community --fixin