As the holiday season quickly approaches, the annual worry of what gifts to get for your friends and family accompanies the rapidly chilling weather. The Sackville Holiday Passport is an opportunity to solve that problem while getting a taste for what the town has to offer.
The passport is a little red booklet that can be picked up from any participating location. Inside are pages filled with the logos of and information about local businesses. The farmer’s market, Mel’s, Blooms–almost every business in the downtown area is accounted for.
The passports were first released around November 16, and the event will continue until December 23. Passport holders can bring their passports to participating businesses and receive a stamp on their passport. No purchase is required, but you are encouraged to spend at least $10. Once you have collected 15 stamps from 15 different businesses, including the write-in entries at the back of the book, the passport can be brought to town hall in exchange for a Sackville t-shirt and an entry into a draw to win a $1000 local business shopping spree.
The book also lists some specials that the businesses will be offering over the course of the holiday season. The passport can serve as an excellent way for new students at Mt. A to become familiar with the town they will be living in for the next few years. It provides an overview of the different businesses in the town and an incentive to go out and explore. The book contains cafes, restaurants, grocery stores, hair salons and more. These are all places one might find themselves walking into even without the need to collect a business stamp. The passport may even direct long-time residents to businesses that they didn’t know existed.
The passport is a clever idea and it is one used by the town before. For residents who will likely need to go shopping anyway, picking up a Holiday Passport along the way only makes sense. With plenty of time before the deadline, readers of this article will be able to take all the time they need to fill out their books should they choose to participate.
