After Thanksgiving, Communities Celebrate 'Buy Local Day'

"The day is coordinated by the Sustainable Business Network of Portland, a three-year-old nonprofit, independent business alliance that works to help local businesses become more sustainable."

"More than 50 cities across the country celebrate Buy Local Day and the movement is growing. About 100 businesses took part in the first year of the Portland campaign, 250 the second year and 350 local participants have signed up this year."

"'I joined the SBNP as a retail board member a couple of years ago right before the first Buy Local Day,' he says. 'It was the first time I had ever heard that 300 percent more money stays circulating in the local community when you buy locally. I had no idea, and I thought that this was the kind of information that every consumer should be working with.'"

In opposition to the high retail sales that occur on the day after Thanksgiving, the nonprofit magazine Adbusters created "Buy Nothing Day". Consumers are asked to refrain from buying for 24 hours -- part of a 14-year-old anticonsumerism campaign started in Vancouver, British Columbia.