There’s less than a week to finish Christmas shopping and doing so locally can help your community. Main Street Washington Director Sarah Grunewaldt explains how shopping at local businesses helps the community as a whole, “About 70-cents of every dollar you spend in town stays within the community and it circulates within the community about seven or eight times before it leaves the community. So, when you spend $1, even just $1, 70-cents of that goes to paying for the schools, paying for the municipal utilities, paying for the cops, the fire department, emergency services, I mean all things we take advantage of and that sometimes take for granted.” She says in addition, it supports local jobs and businesses that often give to area fundraisers.

Grunewaldt says regardless of who you have left on your list you can find the right gift for them downtown, “Oh my gosh, yeah there are so many things in downtown. It is really remarkable the variety of items for all ages, for all activities, for all hobbies that you can really find in our community at-large, but also in downtown.”

Chamber Bucks are another option for a local gift, and that gives the receiver the choice of where to spend the dollars including restaurants and stores. Those can be purchased at the Washington Chamber of Commerce.