Thankfulness & Giving Back: Voice Of The Township
This year Thanksgiving comes as late in the year as it can, with the celebration kicking off the season of winter festivities arriving on November 28th. On that day the Wayne Township Trustee Office will be closed so that our staff can celebrate this holiday of gratitude. We will, however, re-open on Friday the 29th. As we have done every year since 2007, the Wayne Township Trustee Office will be open and available to the public on the following Friday. We don’t make appointments for that day as we work with just a skeleton crew of department directors, but our last trustee, Rick Stevenson, believed that it was important that our office not be closed for two weekdays in a row, and Trustee Austin Knox has continued that tradition. So, if you have need of our services on Friday November 29th we will be open during our regular business hours from 8:00 AM to 12:00 PM.
Since many offices are closed the Friday after Thanksgiving, “Black Friday” has become one of the biggest shopping days of the year. On that day, many retailers have come to expect holiday gift shopping to begin in earnest, making business so brisk as to turn the red ink on their books into black, hence the name. Maybe times have changed somewhat with online shopping and stores stocking up for Christmas earlier and earlier in the year. I started seeing red and green in the stores just after Labor Day! But, Black Friday still marks the unofficial beginning of the fun that is local holiday shopping season.
Many employers give their staff that day off to let them start their shopping and to give a jump-start to the economy. In fact, Indiana is one of twenty-four states that have made “The Day after Thanksgiving” an official holiday for public employees. Virtually all retailers take advantage of the fact that people are off work by offering hard-to-resist sales and promotions to bring customers through their doors. Many stores also extend their hours in order to get a leg up on the competition. Special hours at big box stores might include opening as early as midnight the night before or even on Thanksgiving Day itself and staying open through the night starting their sale prices at midnight.
The next unofficial holiday observance is the last day of November this year: Small Business Saturday. Beginning in the United States in 2010, this informal holiday was designed to encourage holiday shoppers to patronize their local ‘brick and mortar’ businesses. The first such event was sponsored by American Express in partnership with the National Trust for Historic Preservation and was promoted in a nationwide radio and TV advertising campaign. Amex bought advertising space on Facebook to be used by its small-merchant account holders. The company also gave rebates to new customers to promote the event. Many local politicians and small business groups in the United States issued proclamations. The Small Business Saturday movement was a success and has been going on ever since.
Patronizing small and local businesses makes a lot of sense. Living and doing business on a local level is, after all, what the township government and its services are all about. Local government, that is cities, towns, and townships, are run by the governments closest to the people. As with the owner of a locally owned business, your township trustee is someone you can call or meet with person-to-person. Local governments and local businesses are the most accountable to the people because they are so accessible, and that accessibility makes them especially motivated to care about what you, the patron, have to say.
We hope you enjoy the opening of the holiday season this Thanksgiving weekend. The Wayne Township Trustee Office will be starting the public festivities with our fifth annual Ham and Turkey Giveaway on December 19th at a new location this year: the northwest corner of Clinton and Fourth Street. This event, supported in part by gifts from our local vendors in Wayne Township, is free to the public. So, give thanks this Thanksgiving and come see us whenever the need arises.
Happy Holidays!
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