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Sarah Tuttle
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Sarah Tuttle
The Vestavia Hills Chamber of Commerce extended its “Shop, Dine, Play” initiative by bringing 20 more fiberglass piggy banks to the city.
The newest pigs arrived Thursday, making the trip all the way from Gibbon, Nebraska.
The Pig Purpose initiative, which began last year, encourages residents to shop within the city limits of Vestavia Hills, as each pig is connected to shopping, dining or entertainment location within the city.
Chamber President Karen Odle said the goal with the pig project is to represent a piggy bank and is meant to make people understand that investing in local businesses helps the city grow and increases revenue.
There are now 24 pigs total within Vestavia Hills.
“If it continues, we hope to have them throughout the city,” Odle said. “Hopefully in the future we will order some more if people buy them and want them in their business and/or public areas.”
Shoppers can go to vestaviahills.org/ to see where the pigs are and to learn more about the businesses.
Linda Parker, owner of Bruster’s Real Ice Cream in Vestavia, was part of the first group of businesses to purchase the pigs, and said she has seen great success. She said it is key her customers know when they make a purchase it is going right back to the community.
“I think it is very important to keep the money in Vestavia Hills. A lot of the residents don’t realize just exactly how much money it takes to provide all the wonderful services we have,” Parker said. “We have top notch services here in Vestavia and every penny counts to go towards providing those services and providing more services that make the city even better.”
Some pigs have already been sold to businesses that hope to increase awareness of the program, and more pigs are still for sale. The pigs are $800 each to decorate with unique logos and designs.
The first set of pigs were decorated by members of Artists Incorporated, and the sculptures included the “Shop, Dine, Play” logo and presented a story of Vestavia Hills.
With the 20 new pigs, there will be multiple groups within the community decorating.
“One of the things we are most excited about is we are partnering with the schools. Our art teachers at the schools have agreed to take some of these pigs on as projects,” Odle said. “So in addition to Artist Incorporated and other artists in the community we have the schools that will be working with us.”
Odle hopes the new pigs will encourage further investing into Vestavia community and businesses.
Residents can share photos with the pigs on Twitter to @vhchamber with the hashtag #VHpigs.
