With fall in full swing and the holiday season approaching, we at Think Local, Chico! are enthusiastically engaged in growing our community's locally owned, independent business sector.

Thanks to those of you who attended our successful September kick-off at Red Tavern, and to our newest members for signing up to add your voice to our living economy building endeavors.

Since the kick-off, we completed our application to be official members of the national Business Alliance for Local Living Economies (BALLE). Our application will soon be approved.

In these economic times, we believe local living economies are the solution, and Chico is as ripe for this movement as any community in the nation. Citizens and local business owners here understand the importance of a strong local economy and are increasingly putting their money where their values are.

Kudos to the Chico News & Review for their full page ad in last week's issue simply stating: "Shop local this season." The San Francisco Bay Guardian is also hip to the living economy movement and last Thursday, Think Local Chico!'s co-founder Jessica Rios met with regional BALLE network leaders in San Francisco to forward our local efforts. As a result, we're growing connections with Go Local Sonoma County and Nevada City's BALLE network.