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Support Local or Lose Local: Why Southshore’s Small Businesses Need You Now

Let’s be honest, Southshore is growing fast. New developments seem to pop up overnight, chain stores are multiplying like rabbits, and every week someone’s asking if we really need another Dunkin’. (The answer, apparently, is always yes.)

But while the big names come in swinging with national ad budgets and mobile apps, our local businesses are fighting a quieter, tougher battle: staying relevant, staying visible, and staying open.

These are the places that sponsor your kid’s soccer team, donate gift cards to every school raffle, and actually know your name when you walk in, and we’re losing them.

Not because they aren’t good at what they do.
Not because people don’t care.
But because we forget how fragile small business really is.

Let’s say you skip your local coffee shop just once a week in favor of a chain drive-thru. That’s $20 a month gone. Multiply that by 100 people in town, and that’s $2,000 not going to the people who live here, raise their families here, and pay taxes here. That’s the difference between staying open and putting up a “For Lease” sign.

We’ve seen it happen, that family-owned restaurant with the legendary Cuban sandwich? Gone. The boutique with hand-painted gifts and friendly owners? Shuttered. And once they’re gone, they’re not coming back. National brands will scoop up the space before the paint even dries.

That’s why here at The Southshore Circle, we put local first. Everything we do is about building relationships in the community. Our growing list of partners includes Square One Garage Solutions, Steadfast Roofing, and Wellness Vitalized — all local companies owned by local people. People you’ll actually see at Publix, or at your kid’s school pickup line, or sweating through a Riverview 5K like the rest of us.

This isn’t about guilt, it’s about intention. Supporting local doesn’t mean you can never hit up Target or grab Starbucks. It just means making sure the businesses built by this community are still here for this community.

So here’s a challenge: pick three local businesses. A restaurant. A shop. A service provider. Visit them. Post about them. Leave a review. Tell a friend.

Because when we say “support local,” we’re not just talking about where you spend your money. We’re talking about what kind of place we want Southshore to be.

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Part Three

The Cart That Kept Driving

Three days passed. Harold's wife, Marianne, filed a missing persons report, but no one seemed in a rush to investigate. “He probably wandered off,” one deputy muttered. “They get confused sometimes.” But Harold wasn’t confused. He was sharp. Focused. And obsessed with what he’d found in the HOA records just days before his disappearance.

Then, at dawn on the fourth day, his golf cart was found silently circling Swan Lake—its motor running, its GPS frozen mid-route. There were muddy boot prints on the floorboards and a faint smell of ozone clinging to the seat.

Marianne insisted her husband had been “onto something.” She spoke of a pattern—people quietly vanishing after raising too many questions, sealed doors that weren’t there on old maps, and cameras installed around the community almost overnight.

That night, she was gone too. No note. No sign of forced entry. Her home was scrubbed clean—almost too clean.

The very next morning, a message appeared in the community newsletter:
“Due to ongoing renovations, the shuffleboard courts will be temporarily closed. Thank you for your patience.”

And just like that, the stories stopped. Because those who asked too many questions were no longer around to ask them.

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Until next time,

Keep It Local.