With Black Friday and Cyber Monday shopping going on, don’t forget about Small Business Saturday.
A national event started by American Express several years ago, the city of Jacksonville is celebrating Small Business Saturday tomorrow through various shops on the downtown square and around town.
Jacksonville Main Street Executive Director Judy Tighe explains the purpose of Small Business Saturday.
“The main reason behind Small Business Saturday is to celebrate and support the small businesses that make our community and our country thrive. Small businesses actually employ a large percentage of the population. If it weren’t for some of these small businesses, we wouldn’t have a lot of the interesting, unique stores and restaurants and shops that give our town the flavor that it has,” says Tighe.
Tighe says that the majority of businesses in the downtown area will have special deals going on throughout the day.
“The event is actually the deals that the shops have going on. All of the businesses downtown, they’re all having something special going on, whether it’s discounts or special feature in their store – some are doing drawings – and we encourage everyone to participate in Small Business Saturday, to come downtown and see all of the things they have to offer,” Tighe says.
She also talks about how Jacksonville Main Street has been involved in the promotion of Small Business Saturday.
“We’ve been involved in promoting Small Business Saturday for probably about three or four years now. In the past, we’ve had different specials and different events, and what we found was that the event was the stores themselves. This year we kind of thought, ‘we’re not even going to compete and become a distraction, we’re just going to have the businesses celebrating what they’re doing,” says Tighe.
Tighe also mentions that Jacksonville Main Street is excited for the appearance of Santa Claus on the downtown square tonight.