BIG REASONS to Shop Small

Not just on Small Business

Saturday, but every day that you can. Need milk, eggs, bread, or beer? Go to the local corner store instead –Say “hey” and get to know the owner who’s paying taxes to keep your neighborhood in tip-top shape.

Get vocal on social

Post pictures, tweets, and status updates of either the small business you own, or of yourself shopping at one, and be sure to use the hashtag #ShopSmall. Also write positive Yelp reviews for the small businesses you love and support.

Sign up for local business’ loyalty programs – Does a local business have a customer loyalty and rewards program? Sign up for it – not only will you be supporting a local business, but you’ll get discounts and rewards for it, too.

Handicap

Why? Why can you spend an hour working out but cannot walk 10 feet to the locker room to change your clothes? This is a common occurrence at the [local town] rec center where someone occupies the handicap stall in the ladies room to change their clothes while a woman with a walker is standing waiting to use the facility. I am so tired of how selfish and inconsiderate people can be and establishments who won’t post reminders to inconsiderate people to use locker rooms.

Don’t judge us!

To the elderly woman at [local dog park] with the Cardigan Welsh Corgi. You have a lot of nerve to say, to my husband, that we need to take better care of our fur baby! No dog is more loved or better cared for than ours. Just because the dogs had two brief scuffles, and my dog proved herself dominant both times, is no reason to bash the care that we give to our girl. You don’t know us and we don’t want to know you. We are just fellow dog owners. Please take the time to read the dog park rules. Scuffles occur all the time because dogs will be dogs. Only dogs under 25 lbs.belong on the small dog side. You break that rule. No brushing or grooming of dogs is permitted. You break that rule. The rules, however, do not say that you can’t call other dog owners names, so on that one, you are just guilty of being rude!

June 19, 2023 marks the one-year anniversary of New York State recognizing Juneteenth (short for June Nineteenth) as an o cial New York State holiday, with state landmarks to be illuminated in red, black, and green, the black liberation ag to be own over the NYS Capitol, and state employees and buildings remaining closed. What is Juneteenth?

June 19 is o en considered the o cial end of slavery in the United States and the nation’s second Independence Day. Juneteenth celebrates the freedom of African Americans enslaved until liberation a er the Civil War.

In June 1865, Union troops under General Granger’s command arrived in Galveston, Texas at the conclusion of the Civil War to free the remaining enslaved African Americans, nearly two and a half years a er President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation. According to the Smithsonian, on Freedom’s Eve, the eve of Jan 1, 1863, African Americans gathered in churches and private homes across the country awaiting news that the Proclamation took e ect. erea er, Union soldiers “marched onto plantations and across southern cities reading small copies of the Emancipation Proclamation.” e Proclamation established that all enslaved people in Confederate states in rebellion against the Union “shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free.” However, it did not instantly free any enslaved people. e proclamation only applied to places under Confederate control and not to slave-holding border states or rebel areas within regions already under Union control. For example, as Northern troops advanced into the Confederate South, many enslaved people would ee behind Union lines.

In Texas, slavery had continued as normal as they generally experienced no large-scale ghting or signi cant presence of Union troops. Many enslavers from outside the Lone Star State moved there, as a safe haven for slavery.

According to History.com, Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered their side in Virginia, but “slavery remained relatively una ected in Texas—until U.S. General Gordon Granger stood on Texas soil and read General Orders No. 3: ‘ e people of Texas are informed that, in accordance with a proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free.’” e following year, on June 19, 1866, Texas freed men organized the rst of what became an annual “Jubilee Day” celebration. Subsequent Juneteenth commemorations featured music, barbecues, prayer

General Granger’s arrival in Galveston in June 1865 signaled freedom for Texas’s 250,000 enslaved people. “Although emancipation didn’t happen overnight for everyone—in some cases, enslavers withheld the information until a er harvest season—celebrations broke out among newly freed Black people, and Juneteenth was born.” (History.com).