Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:07):
From WBZ News Radio in Boston. This is New England
Weekend where each and every week we come together right
here we talk about all the topics important to you
and the place where you live. It is so good
to be back with you again this week. I'm Nicole Davis,
and I want to wish you the happiest of holidays.
I know we have Hankah and Christmas and Kwanza coming up,
whichever you celebrate, to have a safe and happy and
(00:29):
healthy and peaceful time too with all your loved ones.
So how's your gift shopping going? We have a few
days left until Christmas and Hanukkah. I know I've got
some work to do. Honestly, sometimes I just need ideas.
It's not for lack of sentiment. I'm just not the
most creative gift giver. I was looking around recently and
stumbled upon a brand new gift guide that focuses on
(00:49):
our local small businesses, which of course we love to support.
And this gift guide is courtesy of the Massachusetts LGBT
Chamber of Commerce. So here to share details about it,
we've got Alexander and Eberhart, the Chambers executive director. Great
to have you here, Alexandria, tell us a bit more
about the Chamber first and the work you do.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
The Chamber itself has been around for six years, driving
equitable economic development and supporting LGBTQ small businesses and working
with community organizations, nonprofits, elected officials, and many many corporate
partners and their employee resource groups and working with their
(01:28):
talent acquisition teams and HR teams to make sure that
every human who lives in Massachusetts and walks into a
place of employment every single day and are amazing LGBTQ
identified and ally entrepreneurs and creatives throughout the state feel
value in who they are as a person, but also
value in their skills and attributes and competencies that they
bring into their roles every day. So it's an amazing organization.
(01:51):
And I have to say, I have to I'm very
grateful and lucky that I'm here now, and you know,
it's been a wonderful five weeks and excited where we're going.
Speaker 1 (01:59):
Yeah, definitely, And honestly, one of the many things I
love about where we live is that we have so
many diverse businesses run by so many cool people. And
how did you pull together these businesses for this new
gift guide of yours focusing on LGBTQ businesses.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
Absolutely, So this is something that we've we've been doing
for a few years. We've actually put out five catalogs.
We do two catalogs a year. We do a holiday
catalog such as the one we just released, and then
we also do a Pride catalog in June as well,
And so we really like to continue to showcase our
small businesses, showcase our businesses and the things that they sell,
(02:38):
you know, and businesses that you can buy online, but
also our book and mortar locations and just the creative,
awesome small business support that we have out there. And
so you know, we really work with our small businesses
on what are those products that they're selling and to
really kind of put those into the catalog and create
what you saw the final product today, which is really
(02:59):
one full and you can click in the internal catalog
and it can take you to those specific websites and
purch of all the things that you want to do
for your friends and family at the time.
Speaker 1 (03:08):
Yeah, I'm loving this. I've got the book open right
now and it's actually literally a book like you can
maybe hear happing the pages. This is really cool. How
did you decide to go about it? As I mean,
you could have put this together like you know, just
a list online or whatever. But this is a really
interesting format.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
Absolutely, and we spend a lot of time on it.
You know, the entire team works together, and you know,
I have to give full an honest credit to the
entire team. You know, I'm communicating with you now, but
they've been working on this catalog for a very long time,
you know, and we pretty much the moment we're done
with one catalog, already prepping and whiteboarding for the next
catalog and what it's going to look like. And then
(03:45):
as we have more small businesses join and people join
our chamber, one of the first things that we work
with them on is, you know, what do they sell
and do they want to be showcased? You know, do
they want our help and in marketing their products and
marketing their business? And you know, most say yes, and
so you know, we capture that material and then we
work with them each year on any updates and anything
(04:06):
that they want to add or you know, et cetera.
If they start to grow their lines of business and
product scale, and so it's really exciting. It's it's really
a work of the entire team and kind of a
creative process to put out what we've put out. So
they did an absolutely wonderful job. And you know, I
had the special joy of getting to write the welcome
(04:27):
letter in it, and you know that was really my piece.
But the team worked, you know, hand in hand to
get this done with our small businesses and make sure
that we could showcase their products to the best of
our ability.
Speaker 1 (04:37):
Yeah, you talk a lot about intention, and in a
year where a lot of us are kind of struggling
to really pull together money to get all the gifts
that we want for the holidays and inflation, it's been
super hard, but it's also impacted these small businesses. So
I'm sure it's kind of a win win, having the
having the intention of highlighting these businesses but also helping
(04:58):
people figure out, Okay, I only got so much money
here and there to get this done. At least I
know I'm supporting a small business with a message that
I support as well.
Speaker 2 (05:07):
Absolutely, I think you highlighted one of the most important
things is that coming together as a community and building
our network and also starting to understand and we don't
know what we don't know, so you know, I don't
know that you know, a product may exist at an
LGBTQ owned small business, you know, three towns over from
where I reside, but this catalog actually may point that
(05:28):
out to me, and that I can make the trip
or go online to go and shop and you know,
get to network with the business owners and the workers
and you know, support the small town economy and help
those small businesses grow who can then hire more people
and you know, help the economy move forward that way.
We are a chamber of commerce, but we're very intentional
about the way in which we do it. And I
(05:48):
think that supporting small businesses, especially in the economy now
where you just said we're trying to make our dollar
go further, is you know, being intentional, intentional about who
we want a shop from, to support those that we love,
and really making sure that that intention is there. And
I personally have have always been fairly intentional. I'm definitely
a brick and mortar shopper and always have been. Actually
(06:10):
don't order online, and so I love the experience of
getting to know the people I'm actually buying my products
from and the team as I've gotten to know them.
Also share that, which is really special and so being
able to work with our small businesses, but also having
that small business shop in store or you know online
if it's available mentality, I think people get very excited
(06:31):
about sharing that with other people.
Speaker 1 (06:33):
You've got all sorts of different businesses on here, everything
from food to small crafts to writing workshops. I mean,
this really does kind of run the gamut it does.
Speaker 2 (06:44):
It does, which is really amazing because no matter what
you're really looking for, we have a small business and Massachusetts,
Massachusetts for you to support and you know, and if
there's something that's similar to a product you're looking for,
you know, most of us have cell phones, then you
can call the store and they head see this in
the catalog, but do you also have these and if
that store doesn't have that product. What's amazing about our
(07:05):
community is maybe you call a bookstore and they don't
have that specific book you're looking for, and maybe they
can't order it, but they can send you to a
bookstore that can, you know, And I think that community
piece as well as helping kind of lift others and
you know, create those connections and make sure that we
can provide for the customers and the community that we support,
but also supporting each other's businesses along the way, which
(07:28):
is amazing because all of these small businesses also support
each other, they shop at each other's businesses, they send
clients and customers to those businesses, and so you know,
we're able to help people across the board.
Speaker 1 (07:39):
Absolutely. So if people want to go find this really
cool book to go flip through literally online and go
check out all these neat products, maybe find one that's
closer to their home, where can they get access to this?
Speaker 2 (07:52):
Oh? Absolutely, you know you can find access to it
on our social medias and the easiest way for you
is to go directly to our website and you can
click on the link there and just again, like you said,
flip through, hear the sounds of it. You know, you
can't smell the pages, and you can hear the pages
turning in the it's turning in the booklet, and you know,
you can even shop by category, get sent directly to
(08:13):
those pages almost like an e reader, and then you're
able to click on, click on companies, see the locations
also of these companies, which is amazing as well because
then you can say, oh, I'm not too far from there.
Let me take you know, let me take a trip
over to that small business store and see if there's
a way I can support them and also buy things
from my loved ones to the holiday season.
Speaker 1 (08:31):
Phenomenal. All right, well, Alex, if people want to find
out more too about the work you're doing at the chamber,
where can they do that?
Speaker 2 (08:37):
Absolutely, they can email us as well. They can, you know,
just if they want a general email and you know,
we can bounce it off to the right person and
staff member. They can just email info at m LGBTC
dot org for Massachusetts LGBT Chamber of Commerce dot org.
Or they can call us as well, and we would
be happy to talk to anybody, point them in the
(08:58):
right directions one of our small businesses, or for any
other questions that they have about the work that we
do here.
Speaker 1 (09:03):
All right, Well, have a wonderful holiday, Alex. Thank you
so much for the time and all the best in
the new year.
Speaker 2 (09:07):
Oh, thank you so much.
Speaker 1 (09:09):
You as well, have a safe and healthy and happy holiday,
and of course please join me again next week for
another edition of the show. I'm Nicole Davis from WBZ
News Radio on iHeartRadio.