Behind Keep It Local

Guest Blog Post by Leigh Ann Jones, with Keep It Local Newberg & Keep It Local Mac

You’ve probably been wondering who is behind the Keep It Local Mac and Keep It Local Newberg websites and social media pages. Hi! My name is Leigh Ann Jones and I started Keep It Local Mac over 13 years ago in 2009. At that time I was just sharing reposts from independent, locally owned businesses via Facebook.

My goal: to help local small businesses get greater exposure, to get more people to learn about their businesses and help them grow. This was fine for a few years, but you can only do so much with just sharing social media posts.

Over time as more people began to realize the extreme importance of shopping small and supporting locally owned businesses, I felt there needed to be one spot where local residents could go to find a directory of independently owned local businesses. And that is how the websites for Keep It Local Mac and Newberg were born.

In February of 2019, I sat down with Krista McCallum of 237 Marketing + Web and told her of my idea for the website. I am so thankful that Krista and her team jumped in with both feet. Krista had some amazing ideas for the website and became an important part of developing the look and feel of it.

The Keep It Local Mac site went live in August 2019 and the Keep It Local Newberg site followed in June 2020. One of the amazing benefits of developing the Keep It Local sites is being able to meet (mostly virtually so far) the incredible small business owners we have in our communities. They are compassionate, tenacious, hard working and have a deep love for the community in which they have their business in.

I have been a small business owner/operator in McMinnville for the past 24 years. I own Pacific Frame, the custom picture framing shop in McMinnville. I run the frame shop with my husband, Noel, our daughter, Jazmine, and Levi, our amazing designer! We are truly a locally owned family run business. We started our shop in 1998 downtown McMinnville, where The Merri Artist is now. In 2014 we were fortunate to buy the beautiful Robin and Russ Handweavers building on Adams and 6th Street and we moved our frame shop there.

I have a great love and respect for locally owned businesses and I know the importance of seeing them succeed. Local businesses give back to the community in so many ways. We volunteer our time, we donate our money and we love our community with our entire heart.

Thank you for taking the time to visit the Keep It Local websites and reading this blog post. Please click on the menu above and visit a few business categories to see some of the amazing local businesses that make up our wonderful Yamhill County!