OPINION: This holiday season, shop local for a stronger Alaska

This is the time of year when we start thinking about holiday gifts for friends and family. In the new year, many companies plan orders for everything from equipment to apparel. This holiday season, I ask that you think about how you can shop local for a stronger Alaska. I want to share a few examples of how you can support local entrepreneurs, businesses and good middle-class jobs right here in our community.

I’m an embroiderer at Shirts Up, a local screen-printing and apparel producer located in Ship Creek. We screen-print and embroider apparel from T-shirts to waterproof jackets to stocking caps. We’ve had strong partnerships with many local businesses and trade associations over the years, but we’ve also seen competition from low-cost online vendors who produce with horrific working conditions in overseas sweatshops. If you’re looking at buying apparel, please support our great middle class jobs with a local company. My go-to local shops include Denali Dreams soap company, Rage City Vintage and Grassroots Fair Trade.

Alaska has many small producers. Sure, you can order holiday cards online, but local print shops like Color Art produce them as well. Why not support good local jobs instead of enriching the Silicon Valley monopolists who harm local business? Most of us know local print shops like Color Art or PIP produce printed materials for local businesses, but we can support good local jobs with our own dollars too. As a union print shop, Color Art employees and owners have great wages and benefits. I think we should support these good middle-class jobs and local businesses in our community.

China has come to dominate production of apparel and footwear, but if you’re looking for winter footwear, check out the new Alaska Bunny Boots from Alaska Gear Company. This local manufacturer also produces a wide range of hunting gear, dipnet equipment, and aviation products. Some of their gear is incredibly innovative, such as the folding gear sled for glacier traverses or hauling game. Even if you’re buying normal gear, shopping through a locally owned store like 6th Avenue Outfitters, Hoarding Marmot, Mountain View Sports or B&J Sporting Goods supports local business people and good local jobs.

Many of us have family in the Lower 48. Consider sending them smoked salmon from 10th and M Seafoods, some of the world’s best salsa and hot sauces from Barnacle Seafoods, or one of the outstanding brews or liquors from our local breweries and distilleries.

For the past 40 years, America’s middle class has been hollowed out as production has shifted overseas and we’ve had a decline in good jobs. Alaska has done better than most states at sustaining our middle class, but we have to be thoughtful in our policy and purchasing decisions if our state’s going to be prosperous in the future.

In the company where I work, those of us who work on the shop floor work closely with the business owner to look for growth opportunities and try to improve our wages and benefits. We’re implementing a retirement program in partnership with the laborers’ union to ensure Shirts Up is a place where we can work for a career and retire with dignity. As you go into the holiday season, please think about how your decisions — as an individual, or perhaps as a leader in a local company — affect other families and local companies like ours.

We can all make choices to invest in Alaska, supporting the hardworking people and local business owners who are part of this community. Alaska has amazing working people, inventors, fabricators and entrepreneurs. Let’s support them and our local businesses by shopping local whenever we can.

Laura Lauterbach is an embroiderer at Shirts Up, a local manufacturer of screen-printed and embroidered apparel.

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