For those who celebrate Thanksgiving, one of the most exciting aspects about the holiday — aside from the delicious meals and spending time with loved ones — is getting out on the weekend to enjoy the outdoors and more importantly, go shopping.
As large retailers offer doorbuster Black Friday deals and online sales, many shops and small businesses in Greenpoint will be participating in Shop Small GP’s third Retail Crawl.
Shop Small GP — an organization run by Coz Salon owner Meg Costello and three colleagues — is an initiative which aims to highlight the small local businesses in the area by encouraging visitors to check out as many participating shops as possible.
“We noticed after the pandemic, a lot of people moved into Greenpoint and we as small business owners wanted to introduce the new residents and old residents to what the area has to offer,” Costello said. “We are, famously, stocked and stacked with really interesting small businesses — a lot of them female-owned, a lot of them queer-owned — and we just wanted something to introduce Brooklyn, and New York in general, to what Greenpoint has to offer.”
The Retail Crawl operates through an organized route and fun passport system. Visitors who spend $10 or more at participating shops can receive a stamp on the provided passport and those who get eight or more stamps are entered into a grand prize pool.
This retail crawl there are three different grand prizes, all valued at over $1,200. The prizes are anything from a gift certificate for a haircut to a bag full of products from participating business Common Good, to earrings and other accessories.
Approximately 37 businesses are participating in this year’s Retail Crawl, including popular shops like Lebanese grocery store Edy’s Grocer, vintage shop Awoke Vintage, clothing boutique Drama Club, wine store Dandelion Wine and more.
Planning for this year’s Retail Crawl began in August as interested business owners came together to discuss their ideas and aspirations for this year’s event, which also eventually led to the Shop Small GP initiative’s mission statement being solidified.
“The other big part of this and the big part of Shop Small GP was the ability to communicate with other small business owners,” said Costello. “Everyone was so separate during the pandemic, and so after that it was really nice to touch base with people that have been through what you’ve been through as a small business owner and then just share your resources. We want businesses to feel supported, we want them to feel there is a community behind them, not just the greater community, but a smaller more niche community of business owners that have each other’s back and want the best for everybody.”
The Retail Crawl runs from Nov. 18 through Nov. 26 and prizes will be drawn Nov. 27. To learn more about Shop Small GP, visit their instagram page here.
