Detroit nonprofit encourages shopping local with gift card giveaway

(CBS DETROIT)Black Leaders Detroit wants your money to stay local during the year’s busiest shopping weekend.

“We know that some of these entrepreneurs and small businesses can’t compete when it comes to marketing budgets we’re looking to bring customers to them and what we do is we provide the first $50 dollars for them to go and shop,” said Dwan Dandridge, CEO of Black Leaders Detroit.

Black Leaders Detroit is hosting the giveaway for the fourth year in a row. In an effort to promote local shopping, they distributed 300 $50 gift cards to nearby companies on Friday.

Patsy Wigley received a gift card on Friday. “I think it’s awesome, giving back to the community and not only that the stakeholders in these businesses have a lot in common so when we go in and see goods these are things we’ve been looking for anyway,” she said.

RetailMeNot predicts that the typical consumer will spend $1,000 nationwide.

Sales for Clement Brown, owner of Three Thirteen, a clothing boutique on Livernois, significantly increase when he encourages customers to spend locally and starts them off with a gift card.

“It’s totally night and day from a regular Friday in our store we probably do three to four times more than what we normally would,” he stated.

After covering Michigan’s capital for two years, Elle Meyers joined the CBS News Detroit staff in April 2023. Born in Oregon, Elle graduated from the University of Oregon (go Ducks!) with a double major in political science and journalism, two subjects that have helped her along the way to Detroit.

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