Local business owners hope the creation of a Kamloops dollar will help breathe new life into locally owned downtown businesses.

(CAVELLE LAYES / iNFOnews.ca)

KAMLOOPS — Shop local, support local, pay local. 

Local business owners believe a new way to pay for goods and service in Kamloops could be the boost in the arm small businesses need to thrive.

Dalton Strong, owner of Country Garden Greenhouse and Smorgasbord restaurant, is just one of the many locals coming together to bring a new form of ‘shopping local’ to Kamloops, with the creation of the Kamloops dollar.

The Kamloops currency will be a form of money only usable at participating local businesses.

Strong said it would be used as a way to boost local economy, helping to encourage local business owners and shoppers to spend their money in locally owned businesses.

“We are looking at what is possible and then where we want to go from there,” Strong said, explaining that since the project is so new, they aren’t quite sure what form it will take yet.

The Kamloops businessman said, there are many successful models to look at, some come in the form of paper, like a dollar bill, others take on a coin shape, or even a digital form.

The possibilities are endless and how it would work is simple.

Someone would buy soup at a Kamloops restaurant, using the Kamloops currency, he said, then the restaurant owners would use the Kamloops currency to buy the vegetables to make the soup, and the farmer who grew the vegetables can use the currency to buy some boots at a local store.

“In the end, $10 can circulate 50 times, eventually earning the local economy $500,” Strong said. “We are trying to create a local, living economy that supports one another."

When you go to Walmart because they are offering a product at a discounted price, you are sending that money out of the community, he said.

“When you give all your money to multi-national companies, you end up working for them, and I don’t want to work for them, I want to work for myself.”

Local businesses often support the local community as well, Strong pointed out. His farm alone has donated over $300,000 to local schools over the years

“If that isn’t investing in the community then I don’t know what is,” Strong said. “By investing in students we are investing in the future of Kamloops.”

While the project is still in its planning phases, the team is looking for community volunteers willing to help. They are also looking for local businesses who would like to get involved with project. 

More information about the Kamloops currency, can be found at their webpage, or by attending the meeting  which will take place the first week of April.

To contact a reporter for this story, email Cavelle Layes at clayes@infotelnews.ca or call (250) 319-7494.

News from © iNFOnews, 2014