Avon Lake to kick off Shop Local initiative

AVON LAKE – The City of Avon Lake kicked off its 2024 Shop Local initiative last Friday and will run through December 16. The city has had shop local initiatives in November going back for more than a decade, but 2024 marks the sixth year that Shop Local has had its unique raffle format.

Here's how it works.

Avon Lake businesses participate by selling one $50 gift card to the city and donating another $50 gift card to the city. Avon Lake gives each of those participating businesses raffle tickets and a ticket box. Those businesses each give out tickets to their customers in a way that fits their operation best, and the customers put filled-out tickets in the box.

Each participating business, in late November or early December, pulls a ticket from their box, and that winner gets one of the gift cards from that business. Then, after a month of customers submitting tickets, and after all participating businesses have drawn their individual winner, the city collects all the tickets so that grand prize winners can be drawn.

For the first four years of the Shop Local raffles, there was one grand prize winner, who won the other gift card from all participating businesses—between $1,500 and $2,000 in Avon Lake shopping and dining. Last year, based on input from participating businesses, the city split the grand prize into two grand prizes, which were organized based on type of business.

This year, the city is again splitting up the grand prizes, but are doing three grand prizes based on different areas of the city. There will be Grand Prize West, Grand Prize Central, and Grand Prize East.

Avon Lake Shop Local has 51 participating businesses this year, up from 43 last year. It is the largest number of participating businesses ever.

The city started with a goal of getting 50 Shop Local businesses, according to Avon Lake Community Development Director Ted Esborn said.

"And it was tougher than we thought because we unfortunately had a few of our 2023 participants close their doors. But we enlisted the mayor, city council, and the entire administration to help us reach our goal. We were thrilled until we realized that we had given ourselves 25 percent more work to get all 51 businesses set up for the initiative.

"I mean the character of the city for so long has been its small businesses and it's small businesses that provide these services to the community," Esborn continued. "The companies that participate in Shop Local are restaurants and they're the dry cleaner. They're any business where you can walk in off the street and get a product or a service.

"Everybody sort of talks about small businesses being the backbone of a community and I believe that in Avon Lake, it is even more true than it may be in other places," Esborn added. "I think one of the reasons for that is that small businesses in Avon Lake have so many ties to the community and they've been here in the community for so long. It's a way to appreciate and get Avon Lake residents to kind of get out there and explore these local businesses."