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Downtown Holiday Parade

Written on Nov. 18th, 2022
Featured Image photo for Downtown Holiday Parade

On November 26th, the Salem Main Street Association is celebrating a kickoff to the Winter Holiday season with a parade and tree lighting. The Salem Main Street Association’s long-term goal is to bring seasonal spirit to downtown through lighted decorations that create a festive, welcoming setting that attracts customers to the many Downtown small businesses. The Salem Main Street Association is a volunteer organization that cares about downtown and the businesses that make it up. Jim Vu, Salem Main Street Association Board President, said “A vibrant downtown is a reflection of a vibrant city”.

The Salem Main Street Association is partnering with the Salem Chamber of Commerce as they plan to emphasize the value of small businesses and what they bring to our community. While quoting a small business impact study from Atlanta Jim referenced the fact that money is better spent in small businesses, Jim said, “shopping in locally owned businesses returns 80% of the money spent back to the local economy, while shopping at a big box store brings about approximately 30%.  We want our community to know the impact each customer can have on the success of our local economy by being deliberate on where they spend their money.” The idea of Small Business Weekend is to spend your time giving local businesses back what you normally give to big box stores on Black Friday. They have purchased netted lights for the trees, snowflakes for the polls, and are starting a parade that will take place over five blocks at 6:00 PM on the 26th of November. It will be the First Annual Downtown Salem Holiday Parade that will weave its way through our downtown streets, ending at Court St. between Liberty and Commercial St. to kick off the holidays in style. The tree will be lit above Winslow’s Boutique.  Many Downtown businesses will have unique window decorations and display contest that will be up throughout the month of December.  The general public will be able to vote on their favorite display and the display receiving the most votes will be able to have $500 donated to the non-profit of their choice.  The voting will be available online through their website.

While we encourage all members of the community to show up and support others for the parade and ceremonies, we realize everyone may not be able to make it to the tree lighting, this is okay because the decorations will be up through the end of the year to get in the festive mood and experience the multitudes of great local businesses. 

The Salem Main Street Association is planning and starting things to get this plan into motion. They could always use more volunteers. Volunteers will help hang the snowflakes, the netting of lights, and other items they may have to do. Volunteering takes place on the 12th of November starting at 8:00 AM from Isaacs coffee shop.  

This is a starting point to decorate Downtown Salem and the vision is to decorate more streets, a longer parade route, and more extravagant displays if this year is well received and supported by the community.

For more information please visit https://salemmainstreetassociation.org/ and or the @DownTownSalem for more information about the parade, window decorating, donations, and more.  Both Social media platforms are run by the Salem Main Street Association.

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