CARLTON FLETCHER: I’m starting one-man, shop-local campaign

Round here, we’re carving out our names. Round here, we all look the same. Round here, we talk just like lions, but we sacrifice like lambs.

— Counting Crows

This is not part of some cool new/old campaign that someone was paid $75,000 to come up with. There will be no clever slogan to promote it, no spokesperson or spokesanimal or digitally created spokesmeme extolling its virtues.

It’s just something I thought up after seeing a reminder posted by a local retailer that just had the latest Walmart venture move in next door.

I believe wholeheartedly in the concept of shopping locally. And while I’m not one to make New Year’s resolutions — I still have nightmares about that whole 1997 “going vegan” campaign that lasted through one bite of tofu — I am committing to doing more than just “spreading the word!” about something that should be obvious to anyone who cares about more than how he or she can best game the system to his or her benefit.

I’m going to go out of my way in 2015 to become a better local citizen. I’m going to shop at different locally-owned businesses at least once a week. And while that’s not going to register even a blip on the economic radar, it’s my way of supporting and saying thank you to people who are willing to risk theirs and their families’ futures by relying on their friends and neighbors to support their businesses.

That doesn’t mean, by the way, that I’m going to eat at the Cookie Shoppe once a week all year. I’m going to shop or attend or refuel or dine at a different locally-owned establishment at least once a week. I’m sure I’ll get too busy a month or so in, but I’m going to try and keep records just to show that, if nothing else, my heart was in the right place.

I asked Hans Pomeroy, president of the local Lanier Oil Co., about competing with a giant like Walmart, and his answer was not surprising.

“To suggest that we could compete with Walmart in any way is ridiculous,” Pomeroy said. “They can swat us like a fly, and the generally accepted wisdom is you don’t tug on their cape. But when you pay for your gas at one of their stations, the money goes directly to Arkansas. The money we generate at our (nine) Homerun Foods locations supports local churches, Boys & Girls Clubs, and any number of organizations in our community. Try to get a donation for your group at a Walmart.

“It’s sad, but the truth is if they drop their prices a penny below mine, people are going to go there. And they can do that because of all that corporate money. When you look at the number of mom and pop stores they’ve run out of business, you have to see that it’s not good for the local economy.”

For many who refuse to look beyond the ads they see, the shop-local hoopla is a puzzle. As they drop in at the coffee shop where all the stars drink their triple cafe lattes or that fast-food joint with the clever jingle or the retailer that has more money than most countries and delights in driving competition out of business, they ask a simple question: This place is two blocks from my house. What’s more local than that?

They don’t quite get that, at the end of the day when the household name franchise totals its receipts, the money is whisked off to some corporate office a zillion miles away, turning shrewd businessmen and women millionaires into billionaires. At locally-owned businesses, the day’s receipts go back into the community, helping to pay for things like road repairs, police protection and sewer lines and providing job opportunities that further benefit the community.

I don’t expect to be applauded or lauded for my one-person shop-local campaign. In fact, since I have so little disposable income, my presence will most likely be as much an annoyance as it is an economic bonanza. (Wow, he spent 78 cents after asking my clerk 43 questions. … Gee, he ordered the loss-leader special of the day, which ended up costing me a buck 27. … He bought two gallons of gas; that should get him to the next station a mile or so down the road.)

But so many people assume these days that they’re doing everyone else a favor by telling others what they should be doing to make the community better. I’m just one guy who’s going to put his money where his mouth is. If nothing else, I’ll get the personal satisfaction of knowing that at least I made an effort to do my part.