From the Editors…
As I sat in the waiting room of the clinic recently, another woman nearby was carrying on a fairly loud conversation with an acquaintance she had just run into.
I was tuned out, as it was none of my beeswax, until she began talking about her shopping routine. Promoting Local Shopping is a mission with us here at the Blackfly Gazette, so I began to pay attention. She was apparently from Plaster Rock, and she was griping about her local grocery store.
“Oh, I never shop at the SaveEasy in Plaster Rock, she said, their prices are so high. They think they can get away with it, because they’re the only store in town.” She continued, in a triumphant tone, “I always go to Grand Falls. I love Giant Tiger! And they have so much more to choose from”
Her acquaintance agreed with her, and they spent the rest of the conversation chortling over the good deals to be found if one left their own home town and shopped at Big Box Stores.
Well now. This really depressed me for a number of reasons.
First off, Plaster Rock once had a second grocery store. They had a Food Co-Op, just like Perth. Some years back, I read a poignant letter to the editor in the Star. A resident of Plaster Rock had written this very sad letter, begging their fellow citizens to please support the local Co-Op or it would not be able to survive.
I guess we can all see how that turned out, as the Co-Op ended up shutting its doors not long after I read that letter.
My personal experience is that the prices of local goods are pretty much in the same range as they are at other stores. Sure, big corporations can afford steep discounts on a few items to attract shoppers.
Certainly there is a far greater range of choices. We all need to leave town to buy certain specialty items. We here at the Gazette would love to see a greater selection of specialty foods and organic foods and vegetables in our local stores.
Our local stores COULD and WOULD stock such currently unavailable items if local shoppers made a point of asking for and purchasing these goods.
It would make such an enormous difference to our local economy, our business community and the future of our village if everyone changed their shopping habits just a little bit. By purchasing as much as possible from local merchants, and making out of town trips to shop for stuff you can’t get here yet, we could totally energize our business community!
As our village continues to pick up the pieces after the flood, we need to come together as a team to grow and to thrive.
“No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main…… any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bells tolls; it tolls for thee.” John Donne
Stephanie Kelley
