SAMOHI Students Lead the Way in the “Buy Local” Movement

By Lookout Staff

July 12, 2011 – Buy Local – it's been a buzz word among downtown Santa Monica merchants for two years, but now a group of local high school students are giving the expression new meaning.

Two senior classes at Santa Monica High School – an English class and a statistics class – have focused their learning on the advantages to the community when residents spend their money within the city's borders.

SAMOHI Buy Local vanguard. Photo courtesy of Urban Legend PR

“The goal of the student project was to get kids to see the economic power they hold simply by making certain buying decisions,” said Jennifer Taylor, a senior development analyst for the City of Santa Monica.

“We wanted them to understand that teenagers have a voice and the ability to change the community they live in through the establishments they frequent and the purchases they make,” said Taylor.

The students lost no time in embracing the challenge.

After reading “Cannery Row” and “East of Eden,” and then visiting local farms and studying Santa Monica's farmers markets, students in Jenna Gasparino's English class fanned out to dozens of local stores and restaurants and persuaded them to sign up for the “Buy Local Santa Monica” campaign.

One of the students, Jake Squier, started his own blog, “Grub Trough,” a restaurant review platform that's gained quite a following.

“It's our responsibility to educate our peers about the importance of buying local,” Squier said.

Some of his classmates articulated the connection between a thriving local economy and an educated workforce, particularly the case in Santa Monica where a portion of local sales taxes go directly into the school district's coffers.

And some saw a connection even closer to their lives – the senior prom.

They figured out that if the prom was held in Santa Monica instead of Beverly Hills, $45,000 to $68,000 of the total $100,000 spent on the event would be siphoned back into the local economy.

There's more to come from the high school project.

Students in Mr. Ken Petronis' statistics class have developed a Buy Local Members Survey for participating Buy Local Santa Monica (BLSM) businesses. The survey will generate feedback on the benefits of the BSLM Campaign, and the results will be available this summer.

“I was completely blown away by the depth of understanding the kids achieved through this project,” said Debbie Lee, Director of Marketing, Downtown Santa Monica, Inc.(DSMI).

“Their presentation demonstrated that they understand the interdependence of a community, and that healthy sustainable communities are created by people of all ages buying local,” said Lee.

Two years ago, the Bayside District (now DSMI) teamed up with local businesses to launch the Buy Local campaign.

The Buy Local committee developed the “Buy Local Santa Monica Challenge” this year to introduce students at Santa Monica High School to the Buy Local concept.