Dear small businesses, entrepreneurs, local shops and restaurants and those in the lifestyle and beauty industry...

When you start a small business you want to have all the answers all the time. Then after a little while you realize, you’re never going to have all the answers but if you keep an open mind and a genuine heart, you’ll at the very least be heading in the right direction. 

Then as a little more time passes and the obstacles become harder and the challenges and successes increase, you realize you can’t do it alone. So you start looking for people who share your vision, who can bring their own passions to the table and who you can trust to be collaborators but more importantly, good souls. People who you can both be vulnerable with as well as believe in. 

Then a little more time passes and a little more and before you know it, this is your life and the people you work with are not just the people you work with, they’re your friends, your confidants, the people who are there to celebrate the good moments and support each other during the hard ones. 

There will always be good times and bad but if you have that ride or die tribe, you go through it together. Often times you’ll find that, that and that alone is why and how you overcome. 

But now it’s different, the fight has changed. For countless small businesses, restaurants, local shops, beauty providers, and entrepreneurs in our community who have fought the good fight for so many years, it now seems like the odds are just too great. The effects due to Covid on all of them has been unforgiving and devastating. 

For the first time in my life I’m seeing large numbers of good businesses with strong teams and heartfelt, hardworking entrepreneurs begin to suffer and close by no fault of their own. For the first time ever I’m seeing that having a strong core and unwavering belief in one’s self and one’s people is not enough to overcome what seems to be happening. And for the first time ever, I believe that the only chance for some in our small business community to survive is going to come from the outside and not from within. 

The old saying, “It takes a village” has never been more true for so many in our community, right now.

So to all of our friends, business partners, competitors, clients, collaborators, and fellow small business owners... to all of the local stores and restaurants, coffee shops and beauty salons, starting tomorrow we are going to shout you out, one at a time, every day until something changes. 

Send a picture/ video of your service or establishment with an address/ contact and short description of what you’re offering and we will post you on our Facebook and Instagram. 

So much love and support to all of you who are going through it right now. Stay strong, love each other and love yourselves. 

(To our fellow advertising agencies, video production companies, photographers, videographers or anyone else who may believe we are in the same line of business, we are with you. We welcome you to submit to be posted as well. This is bigger than us and as corny and cliched as this line is sounding these days, we are indeed in this one, together.)