Generally speaking, campgrounds are still mom and pop operations.  Yes, if you go to the big tourist areas like Mount Desert Island and Myrtle Beach that’s all changed but when you spend $100 dollars at our park and countless others you’re supporting small, local businesses who need you to survive.  In tourism Lingo…you are our export market.

Now that things are quieter again I’m catching up on some magazine reading (in the sauna every evening that we’re free)…and found the 3/50 project.  As background information, Waldo county is the only county in Maine that doesn’t have a “Big Box” Store…and most of us seem to like it that way.  We rely on small, independent stores to anchor our community.

The premise of the 3/50 Project is simple: Pick three local enterprises that you couldn’t stand to see disappear and spend $50 every month at those stores (that’s $50 altogether, not at each individual outlet.)  According to the numbers crunched by 3/50 Project founder Cindy Baxter, a retail specialist concerned about the economy’s impact on indie stores nationwide, “If even half of the employed population spend a mere $50 per month in locally owned retail stores, those purchases would generate more that $42.6 billion in revenue.”  Want more math?  For every $100 spent in locally owned independent stores (and campgrounds…my assumption), $68 remains in a community’s economy, versus $43 spent at national chains and $0 spent on online purchases.

So we pledge that we will spend at least $50 each month at the Belfast Coop, Mr. Paperback/Bell the Cat, and Chase’s Daily…and that’s money we earned from you.  Thank you.  Astrig and Steven