The Ledger

By Becky Holland

We talk a lot about what Cochran doesn’t have.

We need another grocery store. We want more restaurants. We wish we had more places to shop, more services, more opportunities and more reasons to keep our hard-earned dollars close to home.

Those are reasonable wants. Our community deserves opportunities to grow.

But I believe there’s a question we need to ask ourselves before we start making another wish list.

How well are we supporting the businesses we already have?

Behind every local storefront is a person who took a chance. Someone who signed a lease, borrowed money, purchased equipment, hired employees or invested years of savings into a dream.

That dream didn’t come with a guarantee.

Every morning, business owners unlock their doors hoping enough customers will walk through them to make another day worthwhile.

And sometimes, those customers don’t come.

Shopping locally isn’t just about buying a birthday gift or picking up something for supper. It’s about choosing to invest in the people who have already invested in us.

It’s eating at a hometown restaurant instead of automatically driving elsewhere. It’s checking with a local retailer before ordering online. It’s considering a local doctor, dentist, pharmacist or other professional when those services meet our needs.

It’s also about something we don’t discuss enough: paying our bills on time.

When a small business provides a service, sends an invoice or extends credit, that business is counting on being paid. The owner has employees, utilities, insurance and other obligations that cannot simply wait.

If someone does work for us, we should make every effort to pay promptly. That’s not just good business. It’s respect.

But supporting local businesses doesn’t always require opening our wallets.

Share their Facebook posts. Recommend them to friends. Leave a thoughtful, positive review when they’ve earned one. Check in on social media when you visit. Tell someone about the wonderful meal you enjoyed or the employee who went out of the way to help you.

Those small gestures can make a tremendous difference.

And when something goes wrong, consider giving the business an opportunity to make it right before taking your frustration to social media. Local business owners are human. They have bad days, make mistakes and face challenges we may never see.

Of course, supporting local doesn’t mean accepting poor service or paying prices we cannot afford. It doesn’t mean we should feel guilty when we must shop elsewhere.

Sometimes the choices we need simply aren’t available here. Sometimes budgets determine where we spend our money.

I understand that.

But when we have a choice, shouldn’t we at least consider home first?

Cochran and Bleckley County are more than dots on a map. We’re a community of neighbors, families, church members, friends and people whose lives are connected in ways we sometimes forget.

The business owner sponsoring a Little League team may be the same person struggling to cover payroll. The restaurant owner preparing our lunch may have been at work long before sunrise. The person behind the counter may be working to put a child through college or keep a family afloat.

And many of these businesses are the first ones we approach when our schools, churches, nonprofits and community organizations need donations.

They show up for us.

We need to show up for them.

Think about what happens when a local business closes. We lose more than a storefront. We lose jobs, convenience, tax revenue, community partnerships and often a familiar face that greeted us for years.

Then we wonder why another business hasn’t moved into the empty building.

If we want prospective businesses to see Cochran as a place worth investing in, they need to see a community that supports its own.

Economic development isn’t solely the responsibility of City Hall, the Chamber of Commerce or business recruiters.

It belongs to all of us.

We cannot personally control which companies choose Cochran. But we can influence the kind of community they discover when they look our way.

So this week, I challenge you to do something simple.

Buy something locally if you can. Enjoy a meal at a hometown restaurant. Make an appointment with a local service provider. Pay an outstanding invoice. Share a business’s post. Write a positive review. Thank an employee. Recommend someone who has treated you well.

And don’t overlook the businesses that have quietly served Bleckley County for decades while we’re busy hoping for something new.

We can welcome growth and appreciate what we already have. The two should go hand in hand.

I want to see Cochran thrive. I want new businesses, new jobs, more choices and opportunities for the next generation.

But I also want the people who have already placed their faith in this community to succeed.

Because the future of Cochran and Bleckley County isn’t measured only by how many new businesses open their doors.

It’s also measured by how many of the doors already open we’re willing to walk through.

Before we ask another business to believe in Cochran, perhaps it’s time we show just how much we believe in each other.