Community Highlights: Meet Jennifer Martin of Shop Local Raleigh

Today we’d like to introduce you to Jennifer Martin.

Hi Jennifer, we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today?
Eleven years ago, my husband and I moved to Cary, NC as his employer was contracted to build 540 from Cary to Holly Springs. With just a few week’s notice to make the move, I arrived with no job, knowing no one other than my now husband and our Bullmastiff Bubba. Having left an Executive Director (ED) job with Susan G. Komen for the Cure, I had no idea what I wanted to do next. After a few months of living off savings and learning the area, life presented an opportunity to be an ED for a non-profit that planned the town Christmas Parade. Thinking that should be a much slower pace environment and only one event a year, I would give it a try and accepted a job with the Greater Raleigh Merchants Association d.b.a. Shop Local Raleigh. Soon, I learned the parade would be the Raleigh Christmas Parade- one of the largest Christmas Parades from Atlanta to DC!!

We fell in love with the area and I feel more in love with my job meeting so many local entrepreneurs, working on several events throughout the city, and serving in several volunteer capacities, I wanted to be involved more and felt there was more the non-profit could do to connect business and community together. With a small committee of very dedicated volunteers coming together over lots of early mornings and late nights, in 2011, Brewgaloo, a craft beer festival was born.

Brewgaloo started as a craft beer festival with the mission of promoting local NC beer- and ensuring that the breweries would get paid for the beer used for the event (not a common practice when the event started). The event had 4500 attendees in just the first year and by year five was seeing 35,000 at the annual event and added a Friday night block party to celebrate the milestone. The block party intended to just be for the 5th annual celebration has now become an annual event as if the event was always a day and a half. In 2018 and 2019, the event celebrated a milestone making the list for USA Today’s 10Best Best Festivals and being fan choice winning the #1 spot for Best Beer Festival in America two years in a row. 2019 the NHL Stanley Cup made an appearance and over 50,000 patrons attended.

2020 we were not going to let a pandemic stop the event or our mission to support small businesses. We made the event a drive-through style still allowing us to purchase package products and safely put in people’s trunks or back seats and was able to purchase close to $100,000 in craft beer and launched an online store selling products for local businesses.

The road has not been easy, but its been an incredible journey and experience. Shop Local Raleigh started with just 100 members and now has over 1000 and growing daily. We opened our own office in 2020, what once was an eyesore in our community is now a gorgeous space that allows for working space for our team and affordable office space for our tenants.

We put on a dozen networking events annually, monthly educational seminars, produce over a half a dozen events for the community- The Raleigh Christmas Parade, Brewgaloo, Falling for Local, Hops Fest (added in 2021) to name a few while partnering with others on many more. We’ve had events in the past such as Boutique Blowout, Hops and Shop Market, Global Eats and various other programs while focusing on the ones we can maximize exposure for our business community.

Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
Events are costly to produce and very time-consuming. When I first started with the organization, I was a staff of one.

It took us several years to expand our staff which still only consists of two full-time employees and an occasional part-time employee. We have very dedicated volunteers that give of their time and energy to make what we do possible- without them, the events and our organization would not be where they are today.

We did a Glenwood South concert series many years ago and myself and an intern planned the event, booked the bands, did the setup and the cleanup and every poured the beverages for the event as it was so low budget and one of our sponsors never sending in payment! This seven weeks series was long, a hot summer and we were also serving on several city committees at that time. I look back remembering how any day we would help members on their needs, schedule seminars, run to task force meetings, be paying invoices from the week before, marketing the week and next weeks event, then it was concert night and pulling off an event- getting home at 1-2am and having to be back the next morning for a 9am meeting. The “grind” felt very real during this season and thank goodness for the support and help of our intern for helping us make it through. That event had low numbers, it was over budget, it didn’t produce the results that we wanted on paper or in our minds- but it did do a lot of things. We met a ton of people in the events industry, we met a lot of residents in the Glenwood South community- which is also where our office was at the time, we connected with a lot of local bands and for the first time people started to see Shop Local Raleigh as more than just a sticker on a business door. That event opened so many doors for us and allowed us to help play a role in starting the Glenwood South Collaborative- a neighborhood and business owners group that still exists today.

As you know, we’re big fans of Shop Local Raleigh. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about the brand?
We connect small business and community together. We exist to help strengthen and enrich our community and help independent businesses grow.

We work with all locally owned and independent businesses throughout Wake Co.

We are independently funded and do not receive city or state funding or tax payer dollars.

The Greater Raleigh Merchants Association was started in 1941 on Fayetteville St. with all of the local downtown merchants. Today it’s grown to have close to 50K Instagram followers, represents over 1000 local businesses and produces several of the largest events in the City of Raleigh! And we are still only $100 a year for a business to be a member.

How do you think about happiness?
When we see the smiles on people’s faces at events having fun!!! Event planning is a lot of work, a lot of hours, stress, lots of emails and phone calls and coordination and lack of sleep and then– then you see it all come together and you see people posting pictures and tagging the event and laughing and just enjoying themselves– and it’s at that moment you just smile and know you did a good thing.

Also having The New York Times feature NC Hops fest in their comeback story, Brewgaloo winning awards, knowing that we built an office, having an incredible co-worker Sarah Getsinger who says yes to all the crazy ideas and takes them to the next level, having a job and a board of Directors that allows me to be me and toss out big, hairy, audacious ideas.

And my husband and my dogs. Work can take a lot of my time but when the event happens he always says he’s so proud of me and that he is happy I love what I do. And my crazy mastiffs – we lost our main squeeze Bubba a few years back and it’s because of him we got into fostering mastiffs. We have loved every single one of them- the ones we’ve foster failed, the ones that have gone on to the more perfect homes and the ones we have said goodbye to. My heart holds a special place for Bubba, Murphy, Si and Tank. And am so grateful for our current family of Mickey, Georgia, Rocket and Buttercup.

Running and Barre-up. Exercise is now a priority for me- something I gave up when life got “too busy.” Now I understand its importance.

My salvation. The gift that was free and even when I make mistakes (which is a lot) I am fearfully and wonderfully made, forgiven and loved.

The beach. You can take the girl out of FL but you can’t take the FL out of the girl.

Pricing:

• Shop Local Raleigh is only $100 or $250 a year!
• The ABC11 Raleigh Christmas Parade is free to attend or watch from home

Contact Info:

• Email: jennifer@shoplocalraleigh.org
• Website: https://shoplocalraleigh.org/
• Instagram: www.instagram.com/ShopLocalRaleigh
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/ShopLocalRaleigh
• Twitter: www.twitter.com/ShopLocRaleigh
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/user/shoplocalraleigh