SCOTT CITY: BUY LOCAL WEEK TERMED SUCCESSFUL BY MERCHANTS

SCOTT CITY -- Buy Local Week at Scott City has left Baker's Bestway manager John Meisenheimer asking for more.

"I'd like to see it done as an annual thing," he said at the grocery store at 1302 Main. "We ran a big sale that week ... and we did have an extremely good week."

Buy Local Week, a first-time project of the Future Business Leaders of America at Scott City High School, ran from Feb. 10-15. The campaign encouraged people from Scott City to buy locally, which adds to the city's tax base.

One of the association's three sponsors said organizers have heard from merchants who say they showed increases in business during the one-week campaign. The sponsor, business teacher Pat Andrews, said if the same effort to buy locally is extended over a year, it would make a big difference.

The students compiled coupon books for the campaign and distributed them. Along with coupons, the book featured displays from 26 merchants.

To show their appreciation, the business students Friday morning hosted a continental breakfast and business department open house for merchants at the high school.

Economy IGA owner Clara Mae Moore was one who attended. Moore said the store's customer count, even though it fluctuates, climbed by about 100 during the campaign. Plus, she said, the store had a fairly good response from its book coupon.

"Naturally we would have liked a better response, but for the first year it was great. I think we should all be very proud of our school system," she said.

No figures were available from Meisenheimer at Baker's Bestway to reflect the store's variation in customers or percentage of sales. "We did have an increase in traffic," he said, "and a considerable sales increase."

The overall percentage of change in sales over the course of the campaign also was not available Friday, but organizers gave a rundown of other merchants who reported higher sales. They said sales at Jeans & Things, 1302 Main, had increased about 8 percent.

The increase at Floral Connection, 523 Second Street East, was about 12 percent, said organizers. Even though the campaign ran during the week of Valentine's Day, they said, the store posted that increase over the year before.

The owner of Virginia's Hair Care Center, 1320 Main, also reported seeing six or eight new customers, they said.

The president of the business association, senior Jennifer Bertrand, 17, said she too thought the campaign had done well for its first year. Bertrand said she hoped that the campaign would be a success if it is continued in years to come.

A distinct possibility exists that the campaign might be conducted again, Andrews said.

"You know, you taste a little bit of victory and you've got these kids hooked," she said. "It shows that the kids are concerned about the future, the city, and that business stays in their city."

Andrews said the business association had tried to think of a different project that it could do this year. She characterized the campaign as a spinoff of the Buy American movement, only on a local level.

A report on the campaign will be done and entered in the state competition of the Future Business Leaders of America, said Bertrand.

Meisenheimer said he thought the campaign brought to the attention of Scott City residents the number of businesses while making merchants more aware of their local customers. "It made us appreciate our customer more."

In the case of Jeans & Things though, any change in buying patterns at Scott City that might take hold because of the campaign will have come too late. The business, now known as "Amy's Fashions," moved to Town Plaza in Cape Girardeau. Manager Gay St. Mary said it opened Thursday.

"We wanted to get in a higher traffic area," said St. Mary. Traffic at Scott City, she said, just was not high enough.

Within a six-month period, she said, about 70 percent of checks written to the business were from out of town.