Back to School Equals Back to Downtown Chelsea

Several downtown Chelsea businesses and the Chamber of Commerce are preparing for a major retail promotion this coming Friday, Saturday and Monday that looks to capitalize on back-to-school shopping.

Chamber Director Rich Cuthie said there are some 20 businesses participating in the promotion this year, and it looks to be bigger and better than ever before.

“These business are Chamber members and non-Chamber members and we have 20 or so,” he said. “There really is a nucleus of stores downtown and they will have balloons in front of them to let people know they are part of it. It’s a good mixture of stores.”

While back-to-school is the major retail push in the promotion, one doesn’t have to be after pencils and sweatpants to take advantage of the effort. Stores include clothing stores, phone stores, bakeries, pizza shops, nail shops and even a barber shop in the Parkway Plaza.

“You don’t need to be a student and back to school could mean you are a college student and are getting a new cell phone,” he said. “You don’t need to be a Chelsea Public School student or parent to participate and enter the drawing.”

Aside from the sales, the Chamber will be holding a drawing for three Mastercard gift cards – $100, $50 and $25. To enter the drawing, one needs to make a purchase at a participating store this weekend, and take the receipt to the Chamber of Commerce office at 308 Broadway.

“We’ll stamp it and have people fill out a card to enter the drawing,” said Cuthie. “On Monday, after it’s all over, we’ll hold the drawing and notify the winners.”

Cuthie said the push is very simple – to capture the foot traffic on Broadway and get them to think about buying locally.

“Basically, the Chamber is trying to capitalize on the foot traffic the downtown has,” he said. “There are tons of people walking the streets of Broadway at every hour of the day. We’re trying to get them to pop into the stores and spend some money locally for back-to-school.”

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