Benefits Of Local Shopping

Come Very Close To Home

To the Editor:

As president of the Chamber of Commerce of Newtown, I’m always encouraging people to use local businesses whenever they can. Here is another reason to do business locally.

About two weeks ago, during a bad wind storm, a vent cover blew off my roof. I realized that I had about a 12-inch hole leading right outside in my attic and we were expecting heavy rain that night. It was late on a Sunday afternoon and not knowing how I was going to repair this, I headed off to the hardware store. I ended up at Ace Hardware where Russ was more than accommodating trying to help me figure out how to fix this without getting on my roof. I’m not real handy, so it had to be simple.

The owner, Ed Pitochelli, happened to be in the store shopping with his son. Knowing I was in a bind, Ed offered to come to my house and fix the problem. He got on my roof and tied a tarp over the opening. It took about ten minutes but that’s not the point. The point is that this local business owner went above and beyond to help one of his customers. This would not happen at any of the “big” stores. I wanted to publicly thank Ed and his staff for all their help that day and for helping me prevent possibly extensive damage to my home.

Do business locally! It truly has more benefits than you can imagine.

Ann Marie Deweese

40 Philo Curtis Road, Sandy Hook                               March 3, 2011