The Soldotna City Council passed a resolution approving $350,000 from the COVID-19 CARES Act Relief Special Revenue Fund to provide a grant to the Soldotna Chamber of Commerce for a Shop Local economic stimulus program to benefit Soldotna small businesses harmed by the COVID-19 public health emergency.
City Manager Stephanie Queen:
“If you recall towards the very end of 2020, congress extended the deadline for the CARES Act fund and for their eligible use. At that point, the city had not expended all of the grant funds, so we were in a position to reevaluate and come back to the council to come up with a plan on the best use of those funds through the remainder of 2021. The council adopted the final version of the CARES Act spending plan back in March. On March 10th was when council adopted 2021-013, which gave us the staff the direction on how to carry out the remaining programs within the CARES Act funds. One of those projects identified under business support and economic development was the Shop Local 2021 program. We have moved forward with the different projects and programs identified in that spending plan. This is one of the last pieces of that program to go into effect. We worked with the chamber who administered the Shop Local program last year. They were willing and ready to do the same again if the council supported funding the program a second time.”
In documents sent to the Soldotna City Council, Shannon Davis, Chamber Executive Director said that the Holding Our Own Shop Local program will run from November 15th through December 15th and motivate nearly $1M of local spending, through incentivizing dollars spent. Participants that spend $200 shopping locally in Soldotna can receive a $100 voucher of their choice to spend at local participating businesses by the end of 2021.
Davis told KSRM:
“We will take receipts for anything that’s purchased from November 1st on. Again, that is for discretionary items, which, really, covers a wide range of things. What it doesn’t cover is gas, groceries, things along those lines, prescriptions, but really, most everything else, including some things you might not think of like tires or, you know, things along those lines do count as discretionary.”
The City initially allocated $115,000 to cover the cost of vouchers, as well as administration and marketing of the 2020 program. That amount was quickly doubled to keep up with consumer demand, and later extended further to allow the program to run for the full 30-day period. In the end, the Chamber received a total of $316,166 for the 2020 Holding Our Own Shop Local program. A total of $289,400 was distributed as vouchers to shoppers, with the program motivating more than $850,000 in local spending in one month.