the 3/50 project...

(Click to enlarge)

Thanks to Julie from Make, who let me know about The 3/50 Project. (Make is the brick and mortar location that carries Loop and Lil.)

To support the project, you pick three independently owned businesses, and commit to spending $50 a month in those three businesses (that's just $50 a month total, not $50 in each business). The premise is that if half the employed population spends $50 a month in those businesses, $42.6 Billion dollars of revenue is generated. And that for every $100 dollars spent in those independently owned businesses, $68 returns to the community through taxes, payroll and other expenditures. To compare, if you spend that same amount in a national chain, only $43 stays in the community.

I'm thinking that we may already do this – we're lucky enough to have a shopping center within walking distance to our house that includes lots of independent retailers – a restaurant, our dry cleaners, a pharmacy. And most of the time we go out to eat it's at an independently owned restaurant. I'm going to start keeping track of our receipts to make sure.

What are the three local businesses you would miss if they disappeared?