COVID-19 Small Business Support Partnership

The COVID-19 pandemic has left a lot of small businesses wondering how they are going to survive in the coming months. No body knows how long this will last, or what the lasting impact will be on the economy on a global, national, provincial, or local scale. Many small business owners have had to shut their doors and/or lay off employees. Many of these businesses do not have the funds to survive an extended period of time without income. While the governments at all levels are bringing money to the proverbial table, there are many in the community who would like to help so when this blows over we can visit our favourite local businesses again.

Quick As A Wink Theatre Society has been part of this community for nearly 15 years and that is because of the support of this community and the small business owners who live and invest here. As a non-profit charitable organization, QAAW has had financial ups and downs throughout the years. We rely on businesses to keep us afloat in the years where money is tighter. While we did have to postpone our March show, The Dinner Party, we are still financially viable for the time being. We are 100% volunteer, so no one has lost their jobs with our shut down. And because we are an organization full of creative minds, we put our heads together and decided we wanted to help.

Because we are a charitable organization, there are programs within Canada that exist to help societies like ours to benefit from technological infrastructure without a large investment. Part of that means we have access to levels of technology that would not otherwise be affordable for us. Similarly, due to the fact we are volunteer-based, we can keep more people involved in our organization throughout the year without financial burden. Small businesses cannot do this without huge costs. All of this combined means we have the ability to produce and maintain websites, intranets, and other technologies.

So we want to help! And the best way we can think right now to help small businesses is to offer our website to help sell gift certificates for businesses who cannot otherwise access the online sales environment. There is an online “buy local” movement circulating social media that encourages people who are able to do so to buy gift certificates from local businesses to keep the flow of money coming in now. These gift certificates can then be used for products and services once the COVID-19 public health protocols are lifted and social distancing is relaxed.

We’re starting quickly on this idea, so we reached out to a few of our partners who we knew did not have any way to sell online, but that is just to get this thing rolling. Any business in the area who wants to participate in this and list their gift certificates on our website need only contact Mark at mwainman@qaaw.ca and he will arrange this to happen.

We hope this can help in some small way for our local business owners and we look forward to the day we can access our favourite establishments once again! We love this community and we want to keep it strong!

FINE PRINT:
This is not a complicated project - we are being transparent. These are legitimate gift certificates and the business will get all the money less 5% for processing and admin fees (similar to what they would pay to their debit/credit provider). The only folks who benefit from this are the small businesses and our community as a whole!

Also, you cannot use the gift certificates until the businesses re-open or are back to normal capacity. Each business will take the list of purchased gift certificates and produce physical gift certificates for you to pick up when the social distancing is relaxed. Nothing will be shipped.