By LIDDIE MARTINEZ
President, Los Alamos Region
Enterprise Bank & Trust, Member FDIC

National Small Business Week began April 30 and runs until May 6. This week especially, I’d like to highlight the importance of the small businesses in Los Alamos. Small businesses make up the foundation of our local economy and keep us going. I encourage each of you to support a small business near you this week, and consider buying from local retailers when given the option.

I am grateful that Enterprise Bank & Trust values our local small businesses and always prioritizes uplifting our community. One of my favorite ways that we give back at Enterprise is through our Blue Bucks program.

For five years in a row, Enterprise has teamed up with the Los Alamos Chamber of Commerce and Los Alamos MainStreet to organize this initiative and support local businesses during Small Business Saturday Nov. 25, through the holiday shopping season and beyond.

The Blue Bucks program incentivizes shoppers to buy locally by rewarding them one ticket for every $25 dollars spent in a participating small business. The tickets are then pooled and drawn from for prizes. In 2022, the Blue Bucks program brought in more than 17,000 tickets from 51 local businesses, equivalent to a minimum of $120,000 of money kept in the community.

Many residents who participated in past years have shared with us that they discovered some of their favorite local shops through Blue Bucks, and now they can’t imagine Los Alamos without them!

I am incredibly thankful for the level of support everyone showed our local businesses last year and I look forward to another year of uplifting our community by shopping small all year round.