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18 Wednesday, December 12, 2012

Party, Play & Shop...

The Current

Holidays inWashington

Groups in Mount Pleasant, Petworth strive to get residents to ‘shop local’ By ALIX PIANIN Current Staff Writer

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ith the holidays quickly approaching, small-business owners in Petworth and Mount Pleasant are capitalizing on the annual retail race to showcase their own enterprises with special initiatives and events. They all have the same goal: to convince D.C. customers to shop local. For areas like Mount Pleasant, where the commercial strip is too small to warrant a business improvement district or a fully staffed business association, integrating owners into an annual holiday celebration has been key, neighbors say. The Mount Pleasant Business Association tapped

Natalie Avery, a resident who helped organize a local artisan market last summer, to work on last weekend’s Holiday Celebration in Lamont Park — and to tie the yearly event closer to community business. The goal, Avery said, was to create an event that kicked off the holidays while also informing residents about various sales, shops and restaurants in Mount Pleasant. She took to the event’s website and Facebook page to spread the word, and helped to coordinate cross-promotion among local businesses. In addition to the event’s traditional Santa visits and crafts, store owners offered special deals, local artists sold handmade gifts at “The Cheap Art Show,� and Bancroft

Elementary School began its annual Christmas tree show. Altogether, Avery estimates between 300 and 400 attended. “I think that there’s been a history of activism and community activity in D.C. that has often pit residents and businesses against each other,� said Avery, a D.C. native. “More and more what I see is this realization that that’s not a good strategy if you’re envisioning what you want the commercial corridor to be like, what you want your neighborhood to be like.� Boveda Tribes owner Barbara Cameron, who sells jewelry and textiles, drew new customers to her products with a sidewalk sale she set up during the event. “It’s not feasible to compete

with Amazon, nor the big-box stores,� Cameron wrote in an email. “Our strength lies in being able to provide personal attention to our customers.� While the Mount Pleasant event is already a neighborhood institution, business owners in Petworth are now launching the neighborhood’s first local shopping initiative. “Shop the Heart of Petworth� started small — just a group of five or six business owners discussing their shops on an October evening. But the owners found they had a problem in common: lack of effective outreach to the community. They formed a small-business owners cooperative, said Julie Wineinger, who owns the clothing

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store Willow Fashion on Upshur Street, and planned to send promotional mailers to Petworth residents. The co-op eventually grew to 20 business owners. Wineinger tapped her graphic artist friend Torie Partridge to design a map of Petworth that was mailed to around 15,000 Ward 4 homes at the end of November, complete with a coupon for a onetime discount at the participating local businesses. Members of the business co-op also hoped that by promoting their shops in December, they could show residents how much holiday shopping could be done right in the neighborhood, Wineinger said. For fledgling businesses in Petworth — Wineinger noted that many of the those participating have been open for less than two years — owners often find that customers are unaware of what is available in their local marketplace. Elizabeth Lloyd, co-owner of Golden Heart Yoga DC on Georgia Avenue, said she and other Petworth business owners have struggled to figure out how to market to a greater population despite limited resources. “[Petworth] is a growing community, but people still leave it to go to Columbia Heights, U Street, Adams Morgan, Pentagon City,â€? Lloyd said. “We have all these wonderful businesses ‌ . People are beginning to realize, ‘Hey, wait a minute, we have all these resources in Petworth?’â€? Wineinger and Lloyd both noticed an increase in revenue and traffic through their businesses after circulating the coupons. “I even had one of the business owners who’s not on the flier come up to me on the street to tell me that people had come in [to the store] because of the mailer,â€? said Wineinger. The Petworth Small Businesses Cooperative plans to send out another round of coupons early next year. Lloyd said she hopes Shop the Heart will eventually grow into a local resource for the community. “It’ll almost be like a yellow book ‌ that provides a financial incentive to shop within Petworth,â€? Lloyd said. For Wineinger and Lloyd, both Petworth residents, the project has become more about getting involved in their own neighborhoods than searching for a bump in revenue, they said. “We not only work in Petworth — we live in Petworth, we shop in Petworth. We’re passionate about where we live, and we want to see it grow,â€? said Lloyd.

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