Fifth Avenue BID Celebrates Small Business Saturday in Style BY MEAGHAN MCGOLDRICK MMCGOLDRICK@ BROOKLYNREPORTER.COM
The Bay Ridge Fifth Avenue BID celebrated Small Business Saturday in style on Sat., Nov. 24 with a complimentary trolley ride for families, and an extra special visit from Santa. Small Business Saturday is an American shopping holiday first observed in 2010. Held Thanksgiving weekend and sandwiched between Black Friday and Cyber Monday, Small Business Saturday encourages holiday weekend shoppers to patronize brick and mortar and mom-and-pop stores closer to home. To mark the occasion, Executive Director of the Fifth Avenue Business Improvement
ebrooklyn media/Photos by Arthur de Gaeta
The Fifth Avenue Trolley.
Afran, Adam, Amal and Manyann Ali pose with Santa and his helpers
Logan Rodriguez with Santa.
District (BID) Amanda Zenteno and her team handed out bags full of special deals along the strip for the big shopping weekend. The trolley event was used as a means to promote Small Business Saturday, a day of the year, Zenteno said, that is what Fifth Avenue is all about. “Something like Small Business Saturday is so important
Passersby get into the Christmas spirit.
Giving out candy canes.
because Fifth Avenue is all and lots of people go out for mom-and-pop shops,” she said, Black Friday but remembering “so when people talk about to come and visit your neighsmall neighborhood business borhood store is important,” – this is exactly what they’re Zenteno said. “It’s then that talking about.” you realize that your dollars are As for the event itself, Zen- going so much further.” teno said, “I thought Saturday Those dollars, she said, are went very well. We had a going right back into Bay packed trolley, we had kids Ridge. with Santa – we also brought “One of the values of shopElmo along. It was a great day.” ping local is that the people Beyond the wonderful who own these businesses are weather, Zenteno said the giving back to the community annual event benefited from all the time,” Zenteno told this a partnership this year with paper, adding that she and her Investors Bank. team have been working on “We had Investors Bank a “Meet the Merchant” video sponsor the trolley so we had series. a table out where they were “One of the things that just giving out information and keeps coming up in all of goodies,” she said, “and we these videos is how much were next to them doing the these merchants are the fabric same thing for Small Business of our community,” she went Saturday.” on. “Their kids go to school She hopes that, for years to here, they’re involved in local come, the calendar day will charities, and they give back.” serve as an encouragement for All in all, Zenteno said, people to “shop small.” “their success is Bay Ridge’s “Lots of people shop online success.”
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