Lewis County Together launched as a website in April as a guide for people to figure out which businesses are open and offering services during the COVID-19 pandemic. It’s a coalition of several organizations throughout the county.
In October, the organization was looking for the next project to help small businesses in the area and landed on the idea of creating a list of businesses in the county that offer gift cards. Because the website already had a list of businesses in the area that indicated whether each one was open, the organization felt the gift card option was an easy way to get the word out.
The gift card tab of the website, located at lewiscountytogether.com/businesses?giftcards=true, has 88 businesses listed, was launched in November. Listings range from small businesses like Dawn’s Delectables, to chains such as Big 5 Sporting Goods.
Lewis County Together’s volunteers asked each business directly whether or not they offered gift cards, splitting volunteers and businesses up into commissioner districts. Tamara Hayes, the Southwest Washington Fair manager who helped with the formation of the website, compiled all the businesses together in the gift card tab.
Each business shows whether they are open, including for takeout or pickup only. It also includes each businesses’ address, phone number and links to their website and Facebook page.
Also, any business owner in Lewis County that’s not currently on the list has the option to add their business and information to the website themselves, located on the ‘add business’ tab at the top of the website’s main page.
“You can put that you have gift cards there,” Hayes said. “And then when others search for gift cards, they’ll find your business.”
Dawn Lawson, owner of Dawn’s Delectables on North Tower Avenue, has offered gift cards for a couple years now. She hasn’t seen a huge uptick yet in their e-gift cards purchased from the website as most people have been coming to the store in-person to purchase them.
“I haven’t had a lot of sales come through on the website or anything, but a lot of people have purchased gift cards, which has been very helpful,” Lawson said. “We’re definitely up compared to last year in gift card sales.”
Another big boost for local businesses is that the Washington State Tourism Alliance has just started showWAlove.com website, which also helps people find businesses statewide that are offering gift cards. Currently, there are only 10 Lewis County businesses listed, but Hayes is preparing to send them Lewis County Together’s entire current list of 88 businesses to include on its website.
Even more, businesses that don’t know how to start a gift card program can do so on the showWalove.com website by clicking ‘Post a Listing’ followed by “Gift Card Setup.’
“Anything we can do to get people shopping locally in Lewis County,” Hayes said. “A lot of our businesses are struggling because of the pandemic. We want to see them stay open.”
For more information, visit Lewis County Together at lewiscountytogether.com, and the Washington Tourism Alliance at showwalove.com.
