This holiday season, shop local, support your community

We try to keep editorializing to a minimum around here… but as the holiday shopping season gets under way, we can’t resist the urge to lobby for one of our most deeply held beliefs: the importance of shopping locally.

Providing the means for local businesses to connect with area residents was one of the needs we sought to fill when we launched PVPost.com in June 2010 — and it’s the support of local businesses that’s allowed us to establish ourselves and grow. Today, more people in the SM East area get daily news about local government, sports and business than from any other source. That wouldn’t be possible without the support of our sponsors — all local businesses.

The importance of supporting local business is also one of the beliefs that led us to sign on as a founding member of the Authentically Local movement six months ago. As the holiday shopping season begins, the philosophy the group outlined back in May seems especially relevant:

Local doesn’t send profits back to a home office somewhere else. Local is something that’s part of what makes where you are unique. As unique and flawed and loveable as your own kids…

Certainly big corporations add a lot of convenience and consistency to our world. They also threaten to homogenize it. If you want home to feel different from everywhere else in the world – or if you want a world that’s interesting to explore, support what’s authentically local.

It’s no secret that times are hard. Many of our neighbors who’d enjoyed steady livings in the past are just scraping by. Some of the businesses that had been fixtures of our community for years have been forced to close or downsize.

When you shop locally, you help keep the unique businesses that make Prairie Village special vibrant. So give a gift to your community this holiday season: keep your holiday shopping dollars in the neighborhood.