You’ve heard of a bar crawl, a pub crawl or even a food crawl, but have you ever heard of a small business crawl? Probably not before Saturday, November 29, when East Kings County Alumnae Chapter coordinated and executed Brooklyn’s first ever Small Business Crawl.
With a focus on shopping at black- and other minority-owned businesses, we “crawled” through three markets: MGB Pops! in Ocean-Hill/Brownsville, Shwick Market in Bushwick and Artists & Fleas in Williamsburg. Twenty “crawlers” – Sorors, family and friends, and strangers who followed the crawl on social media – made 21 purchases worth hundreds of dollars throughout the day.
“Happy to see the news trucks here for something good for a change.” –Brownsville Resident
We were thrilled when Brooklyn Borough President Eric L. Adams, State Senator Jesse Hamilton (20th District), NYS 55th Assemblywoman Latrice Walker, Deputy Commissioner of Small Business Services Gregg Bishop and representatives from the NYC Economic Development Corporation visited our first stop on the crawl. It was great to talk to them about entrepreneurship in East Brooklyn and get their support for our Economic Development Committee’s upcoming programs. Even more inspiring was speaking directly to the small businesses owners we supported and hearing how much they appreciated the crawl.
We made the evening news on Saturday; hopefully the added publicity will help shed more light on, and drive sales to the small businesses that are doing so much for Brooklyn!