Prince George, B.C. – A new program encouraging Prince George residents to shop local kicks off today.

Love Downtown PG includes the participation of over 50 locally owned and independent retailers and is being championed by Downtown Prince George.

“The goal of this program is to draw attention to the variety of stores that are actually available in Prince George,” says executive director Carla Johnston. “Not everybody knows about them because they don’t have the marketing dollars to tell everybody.”

She says the genesis of the program lies with Northern Development noting “it’s a format of a shop local program that they have been implementing all over northern B.C. They’ve got in the neighbourhood of 20 communities (taking part) and they’re launching another 10.”

In all the years she’s worked at Downtown Prince George, Johnston’s never seen so much interest from the business community.

“I’ve never seen the owners as excited about something as they are about this. It’s unprecedented for the amount of businesses we have signing on for this program.”

She adds it’s amazing what a little marketing can do.

“People will walk into these stores and say ‘I had no idea you were here.’ That speaks to the need for a program like this.”

The program officially launches this evening at Two Rivers Gallery with a cake-cutting scheduled for around 5:00 pm.

For a list of all the northern communities taking part click here.