Wishing You Health and Prosperity in 2017
by Krista Lombardi, President, Mission Hills BID
Lombardi Team at Scott & Quinn Real Estate
In Italy, it’s customary to eat cotechino con lenticchie or sausages and green lentils, just after midnight on New Year’s Day. Pigs symbolize progress. Legumes including beans, black eyed peas, and lentils are symbolic of money and are consumed with financial rewards in mind. Lucky me to be both Italian and American with a history of welcoming the New Year with delicious and symbolic cuisines. I imagine you too have a New Year’s tradition which may have included spending it at one of Mission Hills fine dining establishments.
Nowadays, in January, I go on a health cleanse. This year it will go continue until mid-March as I prepare for the March 18th Mission Hills 5K benefitting Grant School.
I am thrilled to share the holiday season was a bright one for Mission Hills businesses. The Mission Hills BID partnered with Small Business Saturday Coalition and American Express to promote ShopSmall throughout Mission Hills. This partnership helped promote Mission Hills as a ShopSmall destination and featured American Express card accepting businesses in a Mission Hills community-wide banner installation. This partnership also provided “swag” in the form of high quality reusable canvas shopping bags, balloons, posters, tiaras, buttons, welcome door mats, and stickers galore. All were give aways designed to attract consumers to our businesses during the holidays. Please visit www.MissionHillsBID.com to enjoy photos from the holidays.
In mid-December Yelp announced, San Diego came in first place for “finding gifts at local businesses.” To determine this list, Yelp created a “gifting score” for cities by looking at positive reviews mentioning the word “gift.” By sifting through millions of Yelp reviews, they identified the “Top 20 Cities to Shop Local” and San Diego ranked number one. Interestingly, Yelp data revealed Yelp searches in the ”shopping” category tend to spike around 11 p.m. According to a recent Yelp-commissioned survey conducted by Harris Poll among over 2,000 adults in the United States, 64 percent planned to do their holiday shopping at local independent businesses. We are pleased so many people chose to shop in Mission Hills.
We are excited about our more than 500 business neighborhood’s collective success with “shopping small and local.” We will experience greater prosperity as we champion each other and promote our neighborhood of businesses. Please join us in encouraging those you know to support Mission Hills businesses with their shopping dollars.
As a reminder, the Mission Hills BID meets at 3:30 p.m. on the first three Wednesdays of each month. The meetings generally take place at Mission Hills United Methodist Church; the BID’s website is the best way to find the most accurate and up-to-date information. The first Wednesday we conduct our committee meetings; including Promotions, Economic Development, Design, and Mission Hills Parking Advisory committees. The second Wednesday the Executive Committee of the Board of Directors meets to consider financial matters of the BID and determine the matters from committee that are ready to place on the board agenda. The third Wednesday is the meeting of the full board of directors where information is distributed and decisions are reached that impact the BID membership.
Please visit the Mission Hills Business Improvement District’s website at www.missionhillsbid.com and consider how you might become more involved in 2017.
I am excited to be president of the Mission Hills BID and looking forward to the BID’s work in 2017. Won’t you join us?
Category: Business, Local News
