$39.90 per Week Is All It Takes...
Policy Note: June 2025.
In 2024 it was reported that the average New York State household spent $266.00 per week on groceries. Now, imagine this scenario what if you removed 15% of that spending that usually goes to one of many chain stores and instead spent it at local stores? How much would that 15% of $266.00 be? The answer is $39.90 per week or only $159.60 per month per household— considering we have 594 households in the community according to the Comprehensive Plan of 2020 this $39.90 per spent translates to $1.232 million roughly in new economic growth in a year. Not exactly something that seems outrageous when considering that $266 in spending per week is equal to $13,832 per year in spending. We only want to extract from that a meager $2,074.80 per household per year to be spent on the main street shops in Windham. If we can turn this spending into direct spending on products produced in Windham using local labor and local resources this will only increase the multiplier effect of this economic growth.
So, our growth can be stimulated by very small amounts regularly spent on Main Street Shops. The question becomes how do we improve these shopping experiences and the answer has several parts:
Create the infrastructure of bike lanes, sidewalks, and local transit to increase shopping on Main Street.
Increase Farmers’ Market Presence during the Spring, Summer, and Fall.
Create a Pro-Local Advertising Campaign supported by the Local Government and Buying Incentive Program to create a stronger local economy — “Windham Bucks”!
What we need to do as soon as possible as the local government is to create policies that will increase spending in our community stores all month long every month of the year. As I’ve shown even a small amount like $39.90 per household if spent consistently has great power of growth in our community.
As town supervisor, I feel it is my obligation to develop these types of pro-local purchasing campaigns to ensure that our main street(s) stay vibrant and active in the community. Programs like this will develop meaningful changes in our community changes that will be felt within the community. And it is only a matter of changing a few of our purchasing habits to more local resources.
Local Spending is critical to our local economy. The sentiment is that Windham is essentially a tourist town with shops that only cater to tourists is a danger to our local economy. We need to turn our shops into local hot spots as well. As I’ve shown with my simple example $39.90 per week is not that much if we spend it locally we can create the type of focused economic growth in our community that supports our local businesses.
This is not a replacement for tourism but a way to ensure our community iron out the dips in the tourist trade. It is also a means to ensure that our Community keeps more of its labor and resources employed in our community.
This policy of local First Initiatives Will be one of my first projects as Town Supervisor to ensure that our local businesses can grow and expand and support each other.