Milchen to Lecture, lead session
Buy Local Workshop Coming to Missoula
By Emily Darrell, 9-11-07
While Missoula’s “Buy Fresh, Buy Local” campaign encourages Missoulians to get local lettuce and homegrown haricots verts, there is currently no such movement for products beyond produce. This is why the Sustainable Business Council (SBC) will holding a “Buy Local” workshop and lecture series Sept. 13 and 14. The series will encourage local business owners and other community members to participate in creating a Missoula Buy Local campaign that will urge citizens to get more of their goods from local retailers.
“Buying local hasn’t been a strong focus for us until this year,” said Susan Anderson the board chair of SBC. Anderson says that the nonprofit organization has in the five years of its existence focused most of its efforts into teaching businesses about sustainable practices like energy efficiency and waste reduction. More recently SBC has become interested into how to increase public interest in frequenting local business instead of big box stores and corporate chains.
The speaker at Thursday night’s lecture will be Jeff Milchen, co-founder and outreach director of the Bozeman-based American Independent Business Alliance. In 1998 Milchen co-founded the nation’s first independent business alliance in Boulder, Colo. and has since aided in the development of Buy Local campaigns in other cities and towns around the U.S. Communities around the country have launched Buy Local campaigns and Milchen said they can be very successful in any sort of community– large or small, liberal or conservative, rural or urban.
The focus of both the SBC lecture and workshop is how to best educate the public about buying local and the benefits it can have for the local economy, environment, and sense of community.
“If you’re going to talk about sustainability,” Milchen said, “you’re talking about local ownership.”
The Buy Local lecture will be held Thursday, Sept.13 at 5:30 p.m. in the Roxy Theater. This event is free and open to the public. The SBC Buy Local workshop will be held Friday, Sept. 14 from 9:00 a.m. to noon. The cost is $50 for SBC members and students and $60 for others.
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