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Marketing Monday: How To Help Your Local Community & Economy During COVID-19
Originally Published April 2020
In this vlog and blog, we’ll talk about how we can make the biggest impact on our local communities while keeping our economy going. As an individual or business, we can all help everyone get through this global crisis by:
- Volunteering
- Donating
- Purchasing
And doing so safely.
Also, be sure to check out our YouTube video on “How To Help Your Local Community & Economy During COVID-19” if you prefer to watch rather than read.
Volunteering
1. Residential Neighbors
Your neighbors to the left and right of you, front and back, whether you’re a business or individual. Offer help to neighbors whether that’s getting groceries for them or medicine, taking them to doctors appointments, running errands, if you can just write letters to them, my kids are writing letters to their friends, sending colored pictures, etc.
Making phone calls, so calling those neighbors once a week to provide positive interaction, something not related to the virus just talking about your day. That’s really important to keeping people positive and keeping people involved in their community during this time.
2. Neighboring Businesses
Another way is to help by offering help to neighboring businesses. Whether you have a Chamber of Commerce or a Rotary club or another business organization, finding out how you can get involved, how they are helping the businesses in your community and how you can be a part of that.
If you are a business, look at the other businesses beside you, get together with them, talk with them. If you don’t have a Chamber or something you can go through, find out how you can band together to make your way through these troubling times. How can you support each other through this.
3. Local Food Shelf
The next thing to look at volunteering at would be your local food shelf, meals on wheels, or the school that provides meals to the students at home. A lot of the volunteers at these places are elderly or retired people. They’re gonna need young people who are less susceptible to the Coronavirus, to COVID-19, so having those volunteers is very important. So make sure that you check in and see if you can be part of the solution.
4. Animal Shelters
Shelters for animals are looking for fosters right now. If you have the ability to foster an animal right now, that’s a big help to them as they lose staffing, as they lose funding, they’re not going to be able to take care of all of these animals.
5. Spreading Cheer
Another volunteer option would be to just spread cheer around. In our neighborhood we have chalk on the sidewalks out front, hearts on the windows, other houses around us are doing this as well, other businesses are putting up lots of signs in their windows, trying to spread positivity and cheer.
Donating
1. Food/Money
A lot of people know that your dollar goes a lot further at a food shelf. But did you know that one dollar can purchase 2-5 meals for a family. That’s how important your dollar is to the food shelf. So if you have extra cash that you’re able to support your community at this time please do so. Whether that’s through the food shelf or meals on wheels or something else.
2. Blood
URL: redcrossblood.org
Another way you can donate is through your blood. The Red Cross is looking for people to donate right now.
They have a shortage because people are afraid to gather in large groups. So the Red Cross is taking every precaution, they’re checking temperatures of people as they come in, they have all the masks and gloves that they need to do their jobs, you protect yourself obviously but they will help you do the distancing. So get in there and donate blood if you can.
3. Masks
URL: joann.com
Another thing if you’re gifted at sewing, they’re looking for people to make masks. JoAnn Fabrics is trying to make 100,000,000 masks out of cloth. So if you’re somebody who can donate the materials and time, head to joann.com, figure out how you can donate those masks, I think they’re up to about 40,000,000 right now.
Purchasing
1. Take-Out/Delivery
A lot of restaurants and bars are closed or doing delivery/take-out only. If you can purchase through them, get that delivery/take-out, that goes a long way because that’s the only way they can make their money right now. We purchased from restaurants ourselves, our local movie theater is also doing popcorn nights, go and get popcorn keep your social distance, wash your hands before and after, do it responsibly, do it safely.
2. Gift Cards
The other thing you can do is get gift cards. This is like a no-interest loan to the business so you get that gift card, purchase it now, the business gets that money and then you use it at a later date after they’ve recovered.
3. Review
Another thing to do is when you spend that money at those stores, be sure to leave a review or post about it on social media, that can make your impact much larger.
4. Take-Out/Delivery For Essential Workers
Also buy takeout/delivery for first responders, police, EMS, fire, hospital workers, also grocery store workers and convenience store workers who are at the gas stations. These are all essential needs that we have, these people are all out there, risking themselves at this time, so that you can stay home as best you can.
How To Help Your Local Community & Economy During COVID-19
These are all the things we can do to help our local community, help our economy at this time, so please keep that in mind.
Check out our other Marketing Monday videos in our YouTube playlist to help you learn how to develop your website and handle digital marketing for your company.
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