Dear Friend,

We live in a wonderful area whose tourism industry is fueled by boating and the neighboring islands, a wonderful amusement park, several indoor & outdoor water parks and more. We're also fortunate to enjoy great shopping and many historic sites.

Like you, we are regularly making purchases for our business. Whenever possible, we shop in North Central Ohio instead of the Internet to support our existing partners and others in the community.

Money spent locally creates a ripple effect as businesses and their employees spend their earnings locally. This creates a cycle where a higher percentage of every dollar spent at locally-owned businesses gets re-deployed back into the community.

If the owner of a Firelands area business is a local resident, then he/she is more likely to spend his/her earnings on products and services here in our area.

Also, a local business is more likely to utilize other businesses in the Firelands area to provide services (e.g., accounting, legal, advertising/marketing, catering and entertainment). These businesses will, in turn, have more money to invest back into this area. They also pay taxes, which fund city services and make our community stronger.

Local businesses provide jobs for our neighbors, and the more you can do to aid local business growth, the more jobs you’ll help create. Local businesses tend to hire a greater percentage of their employees from their own region as opposed to companies headquartered out-of-market.

Simply put, if residents spend more at locally-based businesses, then we will pump more money into our local economy and lead to:

- More companies doing business in North Central Ohio.

- More jobs in our communities.

- Higher demand for housing and commercial space in our local area.

- More funding for our area that will translate into more services that can be provided for Firelands residents.

With an increasing number of people perusing the global marketplace online, it has never been more important to "Shop Local" and support our local business owners.

Let's work together to help grow our community.

Sincerely,

Bill Forthofer
Station Manager
Elyria-Lorain Broadcasting
bforthofer@wkfm.com