Doing the 3/50 on the corridor

The economy being what it is, folks are touting something called the 3/50 for the corridor. It’s a buy-local promotion created by RetailSpeaks CEO Cinda Baxter. The concept: Encourage people to spend $50 per month at three local brick-and-mortar businesses they want to remain in the community. The 3/50 Project Web site insists that if half the employed population spent $50 each month in locally owned independent businesses, it would generate more than $42.6 billion in revenue. According to Baxter, $68 of every $100 spent in such establishments returns to the community through taxes, payroll and other expenditures. Karen Depp of New Orleans at Home is pumping the project on her firm’s blog. “I suppose the most relevant question to be asked is this: What would you do if your favorite restaurant, shop, local bank, bar/grill/music spot, snowball stand, museum, arts market, or grocery store had to shut its door because of the economy?” she writes. “Would you then wonder if maybe your spending $50 a month at local shops would have helped stop the shuttering of entire sections of your city?” To visit the 3/50 Project Web site, click here. To read Depp’s blog, “Let’s Do the 3/50,” click here.