South Hills businesses thrive on Small Business Saturday, boosting community engagement

CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Charlie Boutique was set and ready to go for this year’s Small Business Saturday, and employee Siobhan Gerhart is happy with the sales they brought in.

“This is one of our larger days. It’s even larger than our Black Friday. So Small Business Saturday is a huge need,” she said.

The boutique sits in the South Hills neighborhood and is committed to giving back with some of the profits they recieve to the surrounding communities.

“We also support all the local schools, the high schools, not just George Washington High School but around the whole region.

We’re really happy to do that,” Gerhart said.

Other local businesses on Bridge Road are benefitting from Saturday’s foot traffic, like Yarid’s, who has been in business for more than a century according to owner Emilie Couch.

“The entire Bridge Road community is actually doing a candy cane pull today.

So you pull a candy cane and you get a discount from 10% to 25% off, and it’s good on one item. There are some exclusions, but everyone’s having a great time with it,” Couch said.

According to the US Department of Treasury, small businesses have created over 70% of net new jobs since 2019.

“We employ locally obviously,” Couch explained, “so we employ a lot of people. We pay local taxes, and then we also give back. We have a hard time saying no to a lot of people. We’ll either give items or money.”