By Shelby Stewart-Soldan
ssoldan@mihomepaper.com
Ortonville — For the month of November, the Ortonville Downtown Development Authority and Main Street Oakland County are hosting their annual Local Gem Sweepstakes. The sweepstakes is part of the Shop Small and Local initiative from Oakland County to encourage shopping at small businesses this holiday season.
“Let’s face it, our dollars are stretched by inflation and other factors right now making it even more important for the Ortonville DDA to continue to find creative ways to support the local shops that make our downtown home,” said Ortonville DDA Director Matt Jenkins. “Because of our town’s size, we struggle to create the volume of retail shopping needed to be a destination. Bringing people downtown with engaging promotions like our Local Gems Sweepstakes and Small Business Saturday program is designed to spur commerce.”
Local businesses in the month of November will have selfie photo frames available for patrons to take a selfie at a business they deem a ‘local gem’ and enter into the sweepstakes at oakgov.com/shopsmall for the chance to win a grand prize at the county of $1,000, a second place prize of $500, and a third place prize of $250.
“The holiday shopping season is a large percentage of retail sales for the year and local businesses have indicated that Small Business Saturday is their biggest single day of the year,” said Jenkins. “By collaborating with small businesses, encouraging and incentivizing people to Shop Small/Shop Local, engaging our partners, Oakland County & Genisys Credit Union, we can capitalize on this season and build a sense of place in the hearts of the community.”
The DDA will also provide additional prizes throughout November of weekly $10 winners at each participating business and local gran prizes of $250 for fourth place, $100 for fifth place, and $50 for sixth place in downtown dollars.
“Our community is amazing and they respond so well to promotions like this,” he said. “Since we have been involved with the Local Gem Sweepstakes (Shop, Text, Win before), we have consistently had some of the highest submissions in the sweepstakes compared to other, larger communities in Oakland County. I hope that continues with Local Gems 2024.”