March Madness shop local campaign wrapping up this week

Colfax's March Madness shopping campaign is concluding this week, with the last prizes expected to be awarded tomorrow.

“This is the last week,” said Valoree Gregory, Colfax's unified executive director. “It's been good. People loved it!”

Gregory reported that overall feedback about the March Madness campaign was positive, for both businesses and patrons.

“The business people said it was fun,” Gregory said. “It makes Colfax look like a good place to shop and a fun place to shop because you get prizes for shopping locally.”

The campaign had shoppers scratch March Madness tickets at the time of purchase from local businesses. If three basketballs were revealed, then the ticket could be turned back into the business for collection and possibly winning a prize.

“One week, I had 500 winners!” Gregory exclaimed. Those 500 winning tickets went into a bowl for three winners to be drawn. Three winning tickets were drawn each Friday of the campaign.

Gregory shared that she had a lot of help from one Colfax resident to help make March Madness a success: Billy Swank, who is a Colfax Daily Bulletin carrier, picks up cans for recycling for the city and also sweeps floors at Top Notch Café. Gregory said Swank volunteered to help her pick up winning tickets from businesses each Friday.

“He goes around to all the businesses every Friday morning and picks up all the tickets,” she said. “He's been a lifesaver. He's great; he should win an award!”

Gregory added that Swank's volunteering took a burden off her.

“He saved me a ton of time, and he enjoys doing it,” she said.

The March Madness shopping campaign was the second one completed since Gregory was hired for the unified executive director position last summer. The first was the Passport to Colfax, done at local businesses during the holiday shopping season in November and December. Gregory said both campaigns were a success.

“The Passport and March Madness have been big successes,” she said. “We'll keep thinking of fun things to do.”

Gregory noted one difference between the Passport to Colfax and March Madness was the number of entries from men.

“With the passports, the majority of people who handed in the passports were women,” she said. “But there were tons and tons of mens’ names with March Madness.”

Gregory said she is not sure what made the difference in this campaign to see a more equal distribution between the genders, but she is hoping to keep up the success of campaigns such as these.

“We are brainstorming on some of the next ones for the summer,” she said.

Gregory said one idea for a summer campaign that has come up is a bingo card, with each business giving a bingo number to customers who purchase something. Plans for the summer campaign are not set in stone right now, though.

Gregory did add that plans are in the works for another shop local campaign, which would involve having businesses stay open later the first Thursday of every month starting in June. Businesses would stay open later, and vendors and music would be on the streets as well, Gregory said. She added there would be possibilities of doing ghost hunts at the downtown buildings on these nights.

“That's the next thing we're really working on,” she said. “We want to start it the first Thursday in June if we can get some of the businesses on board.”

Gregory added this would be an event that could continue all year and line up with the Winterfest celebrations in Colfax, as that celebration is the first Thursday of December.

“We'd do it in the winter too,” she said. “We're hoping it will perk up downtown a bit.”