Business owners along Washington Street have begun participating in the “Buy Codman” promotion of the Codman Square Neighborhood Development Corporation (CSNDC), an initiative meant to help incentivize community support for small businesses, such as barber salons and restaurants, that have been hard hit during the pandemic. 

The campaign is being funded by a grant from the Sasaki Foundation.

Lynn Sanders, the director of economic development at Codman Square NDC, said that the “buy local” campaign came out of a collaboration with Boston College’s Corcoran Center for Real Estate & Urban Action, which included a survey that identified methods to support and revitalize the Codman Square business district. 

“Over the last year we’ve done research in collaboration with the Corcoran Center in terms of looking at ways to strengthen the Codman Square business district,” Sanders told the Reporter. “Out of that study came a set of recommendations, one of which included something like this ‘Buy Codman’ campaign, a shop-local program with a loyalty promotion.” 

Participants can pick up a loyalty card from one of 26 participating local businesses on Washington Street, receive a stamp for every $10 spent at any store, and a $25 Visa gift card when they’ve filled their card with stamps. The program will continue until the $5,000 grant is exhausted.

“We’re not sure how quickly it’s going to take off, so we’re leaving it open as long as funding is available,” said Sanders. 
Sonja Namels, owner of Namels Barber Salon on Washington Street, is participating in the program, telling the Reporter that while the campaign is “a very nice program to start, I don’t find it to be that productive because there’s just not a great amount of business flowing through the area like there was before Covid.”

Namels said there needs to be more of a concentrated effort supported by funding to bring new businesses to the area. “I would say we need to be promoted more or visually with maybe a TV commercial about the area that shows the services and shops that are available,” she said. 

The loyalty program is just one facet of a larger strategy that Codman Square NDC hopes to employ to bolster the business district and support merchants. 

“We were kind of trying this initiative with the idea of forming a business district advisory council to bring together businesses and community leaders to work on making more improvements,” said Sanders. “So, we’re thinking of it as a way to kick off a broader business district campaign that is very collaborative.” 

Codman Square NDC has also assisted small business owners in securing $200,000 in federal Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) since the start of the pandemic, and more than $400,000 in some form of relief funding, including grants from the SBA’s Restaurant Revitalization Fund. The organization has also hosted small business seminars and maintained one-on-one support for entrepreneurs during the public health crisis. 

“We’ve continued our small business seminars through the pandemic. They are still remote, and we provided free laptops and internet services in partnership with Tech Goes Home. It has been excellent to be able to make sure that everyone has been able to participate,” said Sanders, who added, people are coming up with creative business ideas and a lot of people who have lost jobs are excited about doing something different.” 

“Codman Square does not have an active group like a Main Street organization, so we’re trying to get more buy-in to create something that’s driven by the businesses themselves,” said Sanders.

Codman Square NDC and Boston College’s Corcoran Center will host a session on Aug. 17 at 6 p.m. called Business & Community Collaboration to Improve Codman Square. For more information or to become a participating “Buy Codman” merchant, reach out to buycodman@csndc.com.