Economic impact

Last weekend, the Chamber hosted its annual Women’s Weekend. The event was a sell-out with 300 women signed up to participate.

Participants took part in classes, visited stores and sampled wine around the community. In their downtime, the women also took time to shop, eat at area restaurants and check out what the community has to offer.

It is a great event and comes at a time of year when a lot of people are getting squirrelly and need an excuse to get out and do something fun.

As with past years, the event is a chance for the women to relax and get away, even if it is just going across town. Its participants included generations of some families with mothers, daughters, sisters, cousins and aunts. It was a time for them to reconnect with old friends and make new ones.

Events such as Women’s Weekend are great from a societal standpoint. They bring people together from different walks of life in a shared fun experience. The world is made better when we can laugh together and build positive memories. While we may come from different places the bonds that connect people remain strong. Beyond the societal benefits of events like Women’s Weekend, the economic impact of events such as this cannot be understated.

As anyone who has worked in any sort of retail or outward facing business environment knows, the first quarter of the year can be brutal for the bottom line. This is especially true for small businesses that fill important niches in the community. These businesses rely on bodies coming through the door and sloppy winter weather never helps bring in customers.

Local restaurants deal with a similar slowdown in the early part of the year as people concentrate on the bills they have to pay or cling to resolutions to cut back.

Events such as Women’s Weekend provide a reason for people to cut loose and check out speciality shops or try out a restaurant they have been meaning to go to. The Chamber surveyed area business owners who were involved with Women’s Weekend and the direct local economic impact from the event is estimated conservatively at about $65,000. This is a conservative estimate, not factoring in small purchases such as people buying fuel and food in town before they leave to go back home. Nor does it factor in the amount that organizers spent from local businesses and restaurants to put on the event. Sue Emmerich of the Chamber noted that some small business owners reported thousands of dollars in sales over the weekend. For a small “mom and pop” level business, this can mean being able to keep their lights on.

The economic impact of events extends even farther. Much like when you throw a rock in a still pond, the ripples radiate out in ever-widening circles. In economics this is called the multiplier effect with every dollar spent in the local community being recirculated through the local economy two to four times in the form of purchases, wages and reinvestment. The direct spending of $65,000 becomes $260,000 of economic impact, from just one event on one weekend.

I have had people from much larger areas comment on the number of events put on in our local communities each year, comparing Medford to those Hallmark-movie kinds of towns with perpetual funky little festivals. If they want to poke fun at us for finding ways to bring people to the community for a good time and to inject money into the local economy, well, I guess we can join them in laughing all the way to the bank.

Asking for help

I have a favor to ask. My 10-year-old great-niece is a fourth grader in New Jersey and is studying about the states.

She chose to learn about Wisconsin and over the weekend she let us know that the Wisconsin flag is not particularly easy to draw with it featuring the state seal on it. I found this to be humorous because the New Jersey state flag is similarly intricate with the state’s coat of arms on it. I offered to share some things from here and this is where I need your help for anyone who wants to share something from Wisconsin for her to share with her teacher and class.

If you are willing, items can be sent in care of her mom, Joyce Richardson, at 211 Toledo Ave., Haddon Township, NJ 08108. Thanks for your help.

Brian Wilson is News Editor at The Star News.