Supporting local businesses is not just some catchy phrase that we all say to make us feel like we're doing our part. It is something we need to do as Jersey Shore loving residents to help save jobs, and frankly save local businesses we need and love.

We have already lost too many businesses we loved over the past year or so due to the pandemic, and so many others are hanging on by a thread. And yes, their very survival sits in the palms of our hands. And washout weekends don't help.

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Sure, there are regulations and rules that are out of our control and in the hands of political leaders, but it doesn't matter on which side of those discussions your opinions fall, there is something we all can do to help.

We've all been through a lot. Of that, there is no doubt, and the last thing we want to do is complicate our lives. There's been enough of that going around, but is an extra trip in your car, or an extra few blocks to get to the local business too much to ask?

Of course it's not, and we've been doing a great job of it. But now that things open up and Covid moves slightly further back in our mind, I fear the importance of buying local may do the same.

But these businesses are far from putting this pandemic behind us. There is no vaccine to recover the lost money and jobs, and that fact only gets magnified by a washout weekend like this past one was.

We can't control the weather, and we can't make policy, but we can make sure that everything we buy or every service we use helps a local business and the people that business employs.

Please keep it up, even when the pandemic is not the first thing on your mind, because these great local businesses need our help still, since they are not out of the woods.

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