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The Think Local First campaign, which runs from Nov. 27 through Dec. 18, sets up a sort of scavenger hunt for shoppers who go to participating local stores in Ephrata, Mount Joy, Elizabethtown, Lititz and Lancaster.
The roughly 60 stores expected to be involved will hide a stuffed version of the Lumpkin, a triangle-shaped cartoon character, somewhere in their store.
By collecting signatures of store owners who have hidden the mouse-like Lumpkin, shoppers will be entered into a drawing to win prizes.
It's all a way of getting shoppers to embrace the "buy local" message, according to Lydia Sadauskas, executive director of the Susquehanna Sustainable Business Network, which is organizing the effort.
The SSBN, which promotes grassroots business in York and Lancaster counties, ran a similar program for one week last year with about a dozen businesses in Lancaster.
Now, the program has been expanded to include smaller towns in Lancaster County and will run three times as long.
For local business boosters, it's a welcome pitch.
"The merchants association was going to do something similar, but if the SSBN is going to come in and do such a program … why not?" said Marsha DiBonaventuro, executive director of Downtown Ephrata.
Stacy Rutherford, manager of Main Street Mount Joy, says the wider promotion gives her organization something to piggyback on as it plans ways to encourage holiday spending in Mount Joy.
"It is really great to work together on a campaign that was pre-existing," she said.
Participating businesses include restaurants and coffee shops as well as stores selling jewelry, books, clothes and flowers.
The Think Local First campaign gives the local business groups a chance to highlight the theme of the economic sustainability and social benefits of supporting locally owned and operated businesses, which make up a large percentage of those in local downtowns.
Beth Wood Bergman, Main Street manager for Elizabethtown, said tougher economic times are forcing many people to rethink their careers, adding that local downtowns can be a great place to make a new start.
"This is one of the best times to reinvent your local community — your downtown — in that entrepreneurial spirit," she said.
For more information about the Think Local First, visit www.thinklocalsusquehanna.com.
