Think Local

Think Local, Buy Local, Be Local
My Customer is My Community

These are the Sustainable Connections headlines on the Cost Cutter/Food Pavilion plastic bags.

Some of the steps are:
1. Support other community businesses and strengthen our local community.
2. Create more jobs. Locally owned businesses create most jobs in a community.
3. Invest in the community. Local businesses are owned by people that live here.
4. Provide more choices. Local businesses select products based on their customers needs.

Friends and neighbors depend on each other. Think Local First!

One blazing example of how we all can BE more local comes from the International Mall at 1733 H Street in Blaine. The new management there, Phillips Edison & Company, recently leased space to The Dollar Tree, a national chain of discount stores. Their location is two doors down from the Dollar Plus store operated by Sukhwant Singh Gill for the past 13 years. The Dollar Tree is bright, shiny and new. It can probably offer a variety of goods at a very good price (we won't be shopping there, so we won't know). Nevertheless, Gill has been steadfastly providing rock-bottom prices on a wide array of goods from gift-wrap to spices, from hand-tools to knick-knacks, from sox and underwear to sponges and tin foil for residents and visitors consistently for those 13 years.

Gill left India in 1993 to seek a better life for his family. He spent four months searching for work. As a practicing Sikh, he kept his beard and turban. That may have been a handicap, but finally, with the help of two Sikh friends, he got a job at a nursing home. He proved to be a very competent nurse’s aide; his wife got work in the nursing home’s laundry. They saved and saved and, with loans from friends and relatives, eventually got the Dollar Plus stores in Blaine and Lynden. “I wanted to have my own business and prove that the turban guy is okay,” says Gill.

Now, all his efforts are threatened by the buying power and glitz of a national chain. The only hope for him is a loyal following of customers who believe in him and in the principles of Think Local First!