Spend $100 with an independent local and around $68 of it stays local, instead of being siphoned into the corporate void. This has never been more important than it is right now, when many small business owners are reeling from having had to shut down, rethink, and spend heavily on safety and sanitation.
But we’re really lucky around here. We’ve said a few sad goodbyes, but our Hudson Valley shopkeepers are a brilliant, persistent bunch. Local business owners came together immediately to help one another polish their online services and find the best and safest ways to ventilate, sanitize, and organize.
Now that many are open again, you’ll find a safety-forward celebration of the connection between merchant and community in progress. Quite a few places are now offering what amounts to a bespoke shopping experience, limiting entrance to a few people at a time; in some places, you can make an appointment and have the gracious, undivided attention of an expert who’s very glad to see you.
Safety protocols are on-point all over the Valley. If you’d still rather not go inside, curbside service has become an art form. Again, call ahead and tell them what you need—who needs a gift, what color and size, what the occasion is—and you will find you’ve made a friend. And if they haven’t got a whatever-it-is, but they know who’s got one, they’ll send you there and you’ll make yet another friend, because that’s how we roll. We lift one another up.
The thing is, in our downtowns and hamlets and tucked-away corners you’d never expect, they have things that are often locally made and sourced that no big box will ever be able to provide. Tinctures, potions, herbs, and spices. Exotic teas and smoked meats, handcrafted fair trade chocolates, and alpaca wool baby gear. Pottery, paintings, and rose petals. Rainbow titanium quartz. Sterling silver and sensual soaps. Pro-grade art supplies, gear for every sport, lingerie to sigh over. Musical instruments and quality beauty products and shoes that fit right.
Hardware and lumber from people who actually care about you getting exactly what you need. Handcrafted wood furniture and sculpture, pottery and hand-blown glass. We don’t mean to be rude, but never in the history of commerce—not in the days of the Sears Roebuck catalogue, not in the era of mall mania, and not now, in the age of the Super Duper Big Box and the instant gratification of one-click ordering—has there been an array of life-enhancing goods any finer than that available to a discerning local shopper in today’s Hudson Valley.
every time you treat yourself to some of it, you’re helping us keep it that way. You’re helping weave the web of connection, lifting up the makers and doers and people who live to serve, and we can’t tell you how very much that means to everyone here. We will lift you up in turn, from the person helping you find the perfect life enhancement to the community celebrating whatever your own dream may be.
Meanwhile, we can totally help you find the things you need, want, and dream of, in brilliantly executed style and substance, whilst keeping the Hudson Valley and the Cats real, down-to-earth, and fascinating. Solid win, all around. Get in on the fun; you’ll be glad you did.
