Sayville rallies around damaged Main Street merchants for Small Business Saturday

After a devastating fire that damaged seven businesses on Main Street, Sayville is pulling out all the stops for national Small Business Saturday to help them and other stores in the area.

There will be live reindeer, ballet troupes, trolley cars and an ice carving of the word “Hope.” The sculpture will be displayed in front of the burned-out businesses.

Eileen Tyznar, immediate past president of the Sayville Chamber of Commerce, said she expects Saturday to be the biggest sales day of the year for the community.

“In a very small town we rely on these sales to carry us through the cold months,” she said. “It’s a really, really big community day.”

It will be a similar story in scores of other communities across Long Island, according to business leaders.

The annual event is an effort to assist local businesses as they face growing competition from big box stores and online merchants, including the behemoth Amazon.

The event was launched in 2010 in part by American Express to pump-up consumer spending at small businesses after the 2008-09 financial crisis.

Last year, the day accounted for $17 billion in sales, a drop off from $17.9 billion in 2002. Overall, national Small Business Saturday has accounted for $201 billion in sales since it started, according to American Express and the Small Business Association, which is a federal agency.

Some businesses on Long Island will offer discounts restricted to Small Business Saturday, while others will extend discounts through Dec. 1. Other stores started Small Business Saturday a day earlier, on Black Friday, and will extend special sales to include Cyber Monday, Newsday reported. Some businesses will extend the deals even later into December.

Matt Cohen, president and CEO of the Long Island Association, told Newsday previously that many businesses have recently “taken a punch to the gut,” partly because of supply chain issues, difficulty hiring workers, record inflation and other issues related to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Small Business Saturday is just the type of boost stores can use,” Cohen told Newsday previously.

Tyznar said small businesses can offer something big box stores and Amazon cannot — a personal touch and individualized attention to customers. “We give something that is magical,” she said.

In Sayville, organizers are looking to give businesses in general a boost but especially the seven damaged in the fire on Oct. 25. All of them have partially re-opened in Sayville, mainly in temporary spaces, Tyznar said, and will be open in those spaces Saturday.

Tyznar said she was overcome with emotion as she thought of the ice sculpture that will be displayed in front of the burned-out stores, and the community support that has emerged. Local businesses and residents have donated more than $107,000 to help the businesses recover, she said.

“The community really pulled through,” she said.