Cash Mob Organizer Hopes to Boost Local Business

Margaret Bishop has lived in Holliston for several years, but recently she had an idea that has never been seen in town before.

Bishop decided to bring a nationwide trend to the businesses in town and organize a cash mob.

"I saw someone post on the Holliston Happy Facebook page about how small businesses are suffering and I had been thinking about cash mobs that I've seen in the news," Bishop said. "So I decided to take the idea and run with it."

Bishop started Facebook page for the cash mob on March 14 and it already has more than 50 likes. She also recently started a twitter account, which she plans to use to help reach more area residents.

Participants in the in Coffee Haven before heading to the destination business in town at 10 a.m.

"I thought it would be fun to leave a little mystery in this so shoppers don't know where they're going," Bishop said. "We're going to have Pam [Coffee Haven's owner] open the envelope when everyone's here to tell us where we're going."

The point behind the cash mob is to encourage Holliston-area residents to shop locally and support small businesses.. Participants are asked to bring between $10 ad $20 to spend at the retailer in town.

"I wanted to make sure it's something everyone can do, for some people $20 can be a lot of money given the economy."

Having a background in business development and marketing, Bishop was able to take some of her skills to help bring the idea to fruition, talking to many business owners in Holliston. She is also using the social media pages to increase the community outreach for the event.

"Having the online networking tools that are available to us today really make it easy to get more of the community involved, before we would have had to rely on paper mailings and phone calls," she said.

If all goes well this month, Bishop is planning on making it a common occurrence in town, hopefully visiting 6-10 businesses a year.

"The more the community as a whole puts in to this, the more the community as a whole will get out of this," Bishop said.