Chamber invites public to make $20 pledge to support local businesses
'We are doing a $20 pledge where we encourage people to go out and spend $20 at a local small business that they have never shopped with before,' said Executive Director for the Daviess County Chamber of Commerce Joe Morris. 'It can something a simple as buying a gift card. It is graduation season and I can't think of a better way to help a graduate celebrate than a gift card from a small business. This campaign and pledge this month is happening all over the country.'
Morris says that he feels a commitment to spend $20 with a new local business will have a tremendous impact on the entire local economy.
'It's the same kind of impact that we see during the holidays when we talk about shopping small and supporting local business,' he said. 'For every $100 spent at a locally owned business, $73 remains in the local economy and $27 leaves. Where it stays it supports all of our local non-profits, our booster clubs and philanthropy. So, for every $100 you spend locally $73 recycles through the local economy.'
Morris says that simply spending with a local business make a difference to every operation.
'This has a positive impact on your merchants, your restaurants, beverage partners, our pubs and clubs, out merchants and retailers,' he said. 'It helps our downtown and the retailers there. It's the same impact in the smaller communities and on organizations like the Odon Business Alliance.'
Morris points out that finding a small business, even one you might not have done business with in the past, should be easy. After all there are nearly 3,000 small businesses in the county dealing with everything from apples to zucchini.
'When you look at those businesses, they are almost all small. Whether you are going to a local nursery to buy flowers and plants or produce, whether you are going to a retail shop to buy clothing, small business is a big deal and it is the local heartbeat of our economy,' said Morris. 'Every day a small business starts. And that means the number of them are growing in Daviess County and that is exciting.'
He points out that when money is spent at a local small business, the profit doesn't get sent off to a large, out-of-state corporation or its shareholders. Often those profits go back into the business to improve or expand its operations.
'Typically the yearbooks, the booster clubs, and the other organizations that support our youth and the youth education initiatives in our county, they always go to the businesses and those businesses are great about stepping up and helping our young people.' said Morris. 'It is always the local small business owner stepping up and supporting those initiatives.'
He points out that small business is the glue to the community. The engine for the economy and the financial conduit that makes Washington and Daviess County what it is.
'We appreciate our small business partners and our members for all they do, not just for our local economy, but the entire community. This is what our community it about,' said Morris. 'We talk about it at Christmas with Shop Small Saturday, now people can do it for the whole month with the $20 pledge.'
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Business Wire
3 days ago
- Business Wire
CapRelo Redefines Global Mobility Services Unveiling its Market Leading, AI Driven Solutions to Help Companies and Employees with Moves
STERLING, Va.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- CapRelo, a leading full-service global relocation management company, has launched its newest AI-driven product: an employer portal featuring a dashboard that provides a real-time, centralized snapshot of employee relocations. The new tool will evolve how HR mobility professionals handle employee relocations. CapRelo's newest product complements and integrates with Moxie—its employee facing AI chatbot tool unveiled last year. CapRelo's newest AI-driven product will evolve how HR mobility professionals handle employee relocations. 'As businesses rush to understand and adopt AI, we are excited to be on the front lines of harnessing AI's predictive tools to make it easier for companies to move their employees,' said Barry Morris, President and CEO, CapRelo. 'We are redefining global mobility through intelligent, human-centric AI. What began as a simple knowledgebase tool has evolved into a comprehensive AI platform with powerful capabilities across both the employee and employer experience.' CapRelo's employer portal will now use AI to provide customized smart summaries of the transferee experience. At the push of a button on their CapRelo Companion portal dashboard, employers instantly transform hundreds of case notes, expenses, and service data points into clean, digestible insights. This allows HR and mobility teams to understand not just what is happening—but how well the relocation process is going. The launch of the AI-driven employer portal will significantly improve HR mobility teams' operational efficiencies saving them dozens of hours summarizing the status of each of their employee relocations. This capability helps companies of all sizes: Identify patterns in employee experiences and sentiments Flag service trends or policy gaps Proactively improve relocation outcomes Provide real time spend data, including budget to actual spend CapRelo is also launching an AI Policy Agent on its employer portal—an intelligent assistant trained on hundreds of relocation policies and best practices. This agent helps employers build or refine relocation policies tailored to their organization's goals; benchmark against industry standards; and generate recommendations based on business priorities, budget, and talent strategy. Another key advancement is the AI File Comparison Tool. Built to support internal teams, this tool analyzes complex documents—home sale contracts, home valuation reports, and corporate policies—and compares them for alignment, consistency, and changes. It saves time and reduces human error. Morris added: 'We created our new dashboard—fueled by AI—in response to client pain points. They wanted to have all aspects—including expenses, contracts, and email correspondence—in one place and then be able to use AI to synthesize the data into meaningful snapshot summaries.' Last year, CapRelo launched Moxie, an AI-powered relocation assistant, to empower employees with 24/7 access to personalized, accurate, and timely move-related answers. Moxie works seamlessly within Companion, CapRelo's online portal, as well as CompanionFlex, CapRelo's innovative Core-Flex portal that delivers a shopping user experience for employees, providing a customized, flexible relocation experience. Moxie quickly evolved from an FAQ bot into an AI virtual consultant —intelligently connected to critical data points such as the employee's unique relocation journey (when, where and how they are going); their company's specific policy and benefits; and real-time status updates and activity logs about the relocation progress. By leveraging this integrated data, Moxie provides tailored guidance for each employee, supporting them through every phase of their move. CapRelo is expanding Moxie's value even further by curating insights about their destination—from top-rated schools and family-friendly neighborhoods to dog parks and commute tips—turning Moxie into a relocation concierge. Soon, CapRelo will expand AI capabilities for its portal even more to create smarter, more personalized relocation experiences by: Enhancing Moxie with destination-specific lifestyle intelligence Further developing policy agent with scenario modeling and global compliance insights Using generative AI to support business reviews with automated insights and tailored reporting Extending AI summarization and comparison tools across all critical workflows The tools are creating efficiencies that translate to time and money. A relocating employee on average works with a relocation consultant for 15-30 hours and asks 25-50 questions over the course of their relocation. Moxie—which acts as a virtual consultant—now fields many of those questions, translating to up to 6,600 hours of operational efficiencies annually. About CapRelo CapRelo is a full-service global mobility management company that delivers best-in-class relocation and assignment services on a technologically advanced platform. With over 25 years' experience, the company has service locations throughout the Americas, EMEA, and Asia Pacific. Learn more at
Business Insider
4 days ago
- Business Insider
Albertsons CEO says cottage cheese sales are up — and it's partly due to TikTok
Albertsons is selling a lot of cottage cheese. The grocery chain's CEO thinks she knows why. "This one, I had to double-check the numbers, but cottage cheese is actually a strong growth category," CEO Susan Morris told analysts on the company's earnings call. Morris was asked whether Albertsons had noticed an increase in healthier items due to the rapid rise of GLP-1 drugs, which include Novo Nordisk's Wegovy and Ozempic. Patients who use the drugs are advised to eat protein-rich foods like cottage cheese. It's not just the diet drugs that are driving demand, though, Morris said. "Yes, some of that's from the focus on protein, lower carbs, perhaps GLP-1 users, and then, just being totally frank, TikTok is driving some of that," she said. "So, we're leaning into those categories." TikTok creators have found creative ways to get their cottage cheese fix. Good Culture, one of the top sellers, told Business Insider it noticed sales taking off in 2023 when creators talked about using cottage cheese in ice cream. Since then, popular videos have cottage cheese mixed into pancakes, bagels, and flatbread batter. On TikTok, there are more than 86,000 videos posted with the hashtag #cottagecheese. One of the most popular videos, 3 ways to make cottage cheese toast, has 5.3 million views. Albertsons is not alone in noticing this trend. Industry data shows that cottage cheese reached $1.75 billion, according to Chicago-based market research firm Circana. The data, published by the trade publication Dairy Foods, indicate that sales increased 18% in a 52-week stretch ending in Feburary. Last year, sales were up 16%. Good Culture, which launched a decade ago, told BI it recently partnered with a collection of creators, including chef and Mŏkbar owner Esther Choi, James Beard finalist Fariyal Abdullahi, and NYT bestselling author Jake Cohen. In 2024, Daisy, one of the mainstays in the space, announced a partnership with Bachelor star Daisy Kent. It wasn't always this way. According to US Department of Agriculture data, in 1975, Americans consumed an average of 4.6 pounds of cottage cheese per person. Consumption decreased in the decades since, bottoming out at an average of 1.9 pounds per person in 2021. Consumption has been rising in recent years — perhaps thanks to TikTok. In 2023, the most recent year available, Americans consumed an average of 2.1 pounds of cottage cheese per person.
Miami Herald
5 days ago
- Miami Herald
Albertsons posts a strong Q1 as pharmacy and digital operations steam ahead
Dive Brief: Albertsons generated $24.9 billion in net sales and other revenue during the first quarter of fiscal 2025, up 2.5% compared with the same period last year, the supermarket chain reported sales moved ahead at a 2.8% clip, twice the rate it posted for the metric during Q1 of 2024, driven by double-digit growth in pharmacy and e-commerce raised its expectations for identical sales for the year, based in part on the assumption that its pharmacy and digital businesses will continue to grow, President and CFO Sharon McCollam said during an earnings call. Dive Insight: Albertsons has been directing resources toward its pharmacy and e-commerce operations, and those investments are paying off for the company, executives said during the earnings call. The grocer has seen "sequential improvement" in its core grocery operations and believes that continued strength in that area will help push identical sales up as the year moves ahead, McCollam said. The company now expects identical sales to rise between 2% and 2.75% during fiscal 2025, up from the range of 1.5% to 2.5% it previously forecast. Albertsons' pharmacy and health business grew 20% year over year during Q1, due in part to robust prescription sales and immunization growth, said CEO Susan Morris, who took over the top job in May. That, in turn, is helping to increase sales elsewhere in the store. People who make purchases at the pharmacy counter visit stores four times more often and buy significantly more groceries than other shoppers, Morris said, underscoring the long-term value for Albertsons of investing in that part of its business. Morris added that Albertsons has found that GLP-1 drugs intended to help people lose weight have turned into sales drivers beyond the pharmacy counter despite the fact that the grocer does not make much money on the drugs themselves. While shoppers who take those medications often decrease the size of their basket at the start, they typically start buying things like supplements and lean proteins, "categories that are actually quite profitable for us as a company," Morris said. During Q1, Albertsons saw 25% growth in digital sales, and e-commerce accounted for 9% of total grocery revenue, Morris said. In response to a question from an analyst, McCollam said Albertsons is "getting very close" to breaking even on its e-commerce operations - a goal that Walmart has already achieved and Kroger is also pursuing. McCollam emphasized that Albertsons does not take its Albertsons Media Collective digital media operation into account when evaluating the profitability of its e-commerce business, which she said differentiates it from competitors. "From a financial point of view, of course, [e-commerce] creates data for the media collective, and it is a major provider of information for the media collective. But from a P&L point of view, it's pure. What is driving that is volume, first and foremost," McCollam said. Morris also said during the call that Albertsons sees a strong growth path for its own brand business, noting that while private label penetration was nearly 26% during Q1, the company believes that figure should be at least 30%. Copyright 2025 Industry Dive. All rights reserved.
