Go Local: Central Hawke's Bay Mayor Alex Walker: On the other side of struggle comes opportunity

Central Hawke's Bay mayor Alex Walker: "We're lucky enough in CHB to be spoilt for choice from our high-quality food producers and boutique, retail shops."

Central Hawke's Bay Mayor Alex Walker reinforces the need to Go Local

As Mayor of Central Hawke's Bay, I'm incredibly proud of the resilience, generosity and spirit of our community.

"Together we Thrive" is our motto and over the past few weeks, it has never felt more poignant with strangers selflessly putting their hands up to help others in need.

As we move through the next few weeks, months and beyond, it's incredibly important that all of us in Hawke's Bay continue to work together.

Now, as we all work to protect our people and help our economy emerge again, I'm asking you to make the most of it.

By shopping local and spending local, you're supporting your local communities in Hawke's Bay. This will be important to restart our precious local businesses and get things moving again.

We're lucky enough in Central Hawke's Bay to be spoilt for choice from our high-quality food producers and boutique, retail shops.

We have an online hub – Shop CHB, where business owners can promote their goods and services, and consumers can find up-to-date information direct from the source.

Head to Facebook and search @shopchb or visit http://www.shopchb.nz/ for details.

Many are delivering personally, or via mail or courier.

There are even more where you can shop online or by phone and then swing by to pick up your goods – whether it's that steaming flat white you've been dreaming about for a month, or a gorgeous scotch fillet steak produced in our beautiful district.

Clothing, shoes, gifts, beauty products, food – ready-made or grown-ready-to-cook – we don't need to go far outside our bubbles to get what we need here in Central Hawke's Bay.

To our business owners, on the other side of struggle comes real opportunity. If you need support in forecasting, planning and preparing for the next stage, please get in touch so council officers can point you in the right direction.

There are many local and regional business support programmes that may be able to help.

Kia Kaha