Region's leaders push initiative to buy local

Friday, Feb. 5, 2010

Click here to enlarge this photo Staff photo by DARWIN WEIGEL Debra Dennis leads the Calvert Memorial Hospital Green Team through a meeting Wednesday at the hospital. E-Mail This Article | Print This Story

A little more than a year ago, merchants in Rockville, the county seat of wealthy Montgomery County, decided they would have to band together to survive the recession. The resulting "Buy Rockville" campaign was successful enough to lure St. Mary's County officials to town to meet the campaign's architects and discover strategies they could take back home.

Bob Schaller, director of the county's Department of Economic and Community Development, said local business campaigns are "not new" but seem to be gaining momentum lately; he was impressed by what he heard in Rockville.

St. Mary's county is not the only one interested in fostering local commerce. The Charles County Chamber of Commerce began organizing its "Choose Charles" campaign late last year but is still getting it off the ground by distributing display cards to merchants to drive traffic to a new Web site, according to President Darlene Breck.

"They know it's in its infancy starting up here; they know how important it is, too," Breck said. "Right now, the chamber of commerce has the entire initiative" but hopes to bring the county commissioners and the Department and Economic Development and Tourism aboard.

Government collaboration is essential for success, according to Bill Campbell, chairman of the chamber's new marketing advisory group.

"I think it's critical in the success of this for the reason that leadership is always usually from the top down, leadership by example," Campbell said.

"Buy Rockville" began with an awareness campaign launched by businesses with the help of matching funds from the city council. The approximately $60,000 in total funding allowed the coalition to hire a public relations firm to spread the word with fliers and a Web site that listed local companies whether they contributed to the campaign or not.

"In fairly short order they were able to galvanize the business community and local government to put this together. The challenge now that they're finished with the first wave is how do they sustain it?" Schaller said.

The campaign started to convince locals to do their 2008 Christmas shopping in town, said Andrea Jolly, executive director of the Rockville Chamber of Commerce. While there are no statistics about the program's success, "anecdotal evidence" suggests it has been valuable, Jolly said.

Buying local is not only about attracting consumers, but also requires businesses to support one another, Jolly said; a hotel switched its printing to a local firm and saved money. She thinks a similar campaign could be launched anywhere where there's a will.

Government involvement is essential to the success of this type of initiative, according to Jeff Miller; Rockville merchants couldn't have achieved what they did without money from the Rockville City Council. It is not charity, however; a flourishing business culture is to everyone's benefit.

Meanwhile, Calvert Memorial Hospital in Prince Frederick has acted on its own to promote local consumption with twin initiatives to include locally grown produce in its cafeteria meals and to organize a farmers market to open in spring.

The farmers market idea was explored last year, but too late in the season to get off the ground, according to Food Service Director Rick Haefner. The hope now is to recruit farmers to a new market supported by the hospital. It will be open once a week, but the time and location are still undetermined, Dennis said.

During the half of last year when local produce was available, the hospital got about a quarter of its fruits and vegetables from Maryland farmers.

"We did use a local produce vendor, but what we also did, which seemed to work a little better, was that we worked with our product vendor, Coastal, and told them that we wanted to buy local. It may not be local to Calvert County but it's local to Maryland. We were getting about 25 percent from Coastal in season. Now there's nothing; it's hard to grow produce in the snow," Haefner said.

Local food is more nutritious because it is fresher, and Haefner said patients were supportive of the program when it was advertised in the cafeteria last year. The hospital will repeat, and possibly expand, the program once local food becomes available again.

Local sourcing does not only benefit patients. Debra Dennis, director of environmental services, said, "I think that it, you know, basic economics, it's good for our community. People in our community get to sell their goods and wares."

While waiting for local crops to grow again, Southern Maryland consumers can peruse the "So. Maryland, So Good" series of guides about local agriculture at www.somarylandsogood.com. The guides, which include information about produce, horses and hiking, are produced by the Southern Maryland Agricultural Development Commission.

emitrano@somdnews.com