By Katie Freeman For The Journal The second annual Shopping for Change event is set to take place in Sarnia’s downtown, Thursday, Nov. 23, featuring more than 40 participating businesses — all to benefit the Women’s Interval Home of Sarnia-Lambton.
By Katie Freeman
For The Journal
The second annual Shopping for Change event is set to take place in Sarnia’s downtown, Thursday, Nov. 23, featuring more than 40 participating businesses — all to benefit the Women’s Interval Home of Sarnia-Lambton.
The event invites participants to venture downtown for special deals, food and entertainment from 4 p.m. to 10 p.m. at 41 local businesses.
The event is a great way to connect ‘shopping local’ with meaningful charities, explained organizer Amy Spadafora.
“So last year we kind of started small,” said Spadafora, noting she reached out to the Interval Home’s Fundraising & Marketing Coordinator Josephine Ethier with the idea.
Proceeds from the event will go towards preventative programs at the agency.
“It’s good to know what’s not okay so if we can prevent as much abuse as much as possible beforehand — for me that’s just the awareness of that,” said Spadafora, who also owns Urban Escape INC downtown.
“It also gives you a taste of shopping and eating downtown — to spark up the Christmas season,” she added. “It kicks off a shopping local week and really draws people downtown to shop and to also support local with us all kind of working together.”
Participating businesses donated towards four gift baskets, with a value of $1,200 or more, Spadafora explained. Each basket is up for grabs through a raffle draw.
The evening will boats a ‘passport system’ as participants venture to participating stores and restaurants, collecting ‘stamps’ towards a chance to win a fifth basket in addition to the raffle. Volunteers from the Interval Home will be on hand to help.
“Each business might have entertainment (musical or artist), some are doing like save taxes, some are doing a pull-a-ticket, and it might be a certain amount off,” Spadafora said, noting that the retail portion of the fundraiser runs from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m., followed by the participating restaurants from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m.
“There are all sorts of kind of cool incentives to bring people down as well.”
Spadafora has been planning the event since July along with her subcommittee comprised of other downtown businesses (Shoe @ 144 Front, Comme Moi Boutique, Garbo’s among others).
“I’m so proud to be a business owner downtown and I feel a lot of businesses do feel that way as well. So, it’s just a really cool project to all work together on something that really supports the community,” she said.
“With small businesses, they are the little sparkles in communities. They are those kinds of little gems that we love and want to hold on to.”
For more information visit the Facebook event page.
For more information on the Women’s Interval Home, visit their website.
