Thanks to http://thishomebelongsto.com for this lovely shot!
I live in a county of 10,000 people. Our Chamber has renamed themselves to the Greater Franklin County Chamber of Commerce – so we can reach out to all the parents and students in our community. That bumps up our count to almost 15,000 people.
Our county seat, Hampton, grew by 4% in the last census. That’s unusual. Rural communities are losing inhabitants, from young people moving out to old people dying. We’re working on creating a census growth in 2020 – because you have to plan for it. If you just ignore growth of a community, it doesn’t happen.
Last night the Chamber rolled out a new promotion. Well, they sneak peeked it. The roll out happens in January. It involves shopping local and toilet paper.
That’s right, toilet paper. 105 rolls of toilet paper. That’s the number that a person uses every year (105 is an average number, women use more than men).
What if everyone in the county were to buy their toilet paper at a store in the county? The numbers are amazing. The tax generated from sales we are losing to other counties is $114,000 (give or take a few) — and that’s tax only. Then you figure in the fact that every dollar spent locally gets re-spent 7 times – and you come up with almost $800,000 in tax generated. That would be taxes we are currently losing to the big box stores in another county.
$800,000. What could we do with that tax revenue?
That’s just one product. Pretty powerful.