What was once called Independents Week (or Indie Week) — a seven-day campaign aiming to support local businesses with coupons, bar crawls, and other events — is now Indie Week XXL, a month-long drive aimed at doing the same thing, just mostly virtually. (No bar crawls during COVID.)
Indie Week XXL starts in September and runs till the end of the month.
Participating shoppers will receive a bingo-style Consumer Action Card, a handy digital tool to track their progress. There are 25 opportunities to support locally owned businesses; categories include shopping at black-owned businesses, getting takeout from a local restaurant, shopping at a farmers’ market, and even composting your food (hey, here’s how to do that).
Prizes, including gift cards, will be awarded for completed rows, columns, and diagonals, with one grand prize (a very big gift card) for a completed bingo card. A form to submit cards will go live September 1 on the Local First Arizona website. Participants should keep digital receipts and screenshots of their support in September.
“Small businesses need support from all Arizonans. Shop with purpose, shop for your community, it's as easy as shifting your usual expenses to benefit a local business this September,” says LFA executive director Thomas Barr in a press release. “As Arizona works to recover from a national economic downturn, we can keep up to four times more dollars in our state by shopping from locally-owned businesses and help build a stronger economy.”
For more information, check out the Facebook event, follow the hashtag #IndieWeekAZ, or see the LFA website.