Ever wonder how local businesses directly support their communities? Know any folks who don't understand why it's so great to shop local? Want to know, specifically, how your local Bookmans partners with other organizations to help the community? Let us count some of the ways!

We'll use Bookmans Flagstaff and their support of education, arts and environmental science in 2011 as an example. After nearly a year of Bookmans employees donating the time they would have been behind the counters to local nonprofits while the store was being reconstructed in 2010, Bookmans invested even more deeply in Flagstaff in 2011. We partnered with countless local arts organizations including the Northern Arizona Book Festival, Flagstaff Friends of Traditional Music, Flagstaff Cultural Partners and FACTS and HeadStart classrooms. During the year the Flagstaff store was down and after, our work included countless contributions and free labor to public school arts classrooms, libraries and in judging science fairs.

Bookmans Flagstaff contributed to music and music education through our innovative Music in the Classroom (MIC) program that employs local musician Chuck Cheesman to teach music and movement education in local Head Start programs for the third year in a row. Over $15,000 has been invested in this program, including payment of the instructor, musical instrument donations to each Head Start classroom, educational gifts to children and their families, as well as ukulele workshops for the teachers.

Bookmans Flagstaff also contributes to music and music education via donations of books and sheet music to local music schools and music programs in the public schools and via their funding of many musical events around Flagstaff -- including booking and funding a stage at Pride in the Pines, employing children's musicians to work local festivals and as sponsors of Pickin' in the Pines via their partnership of Flagstaff Friends of Traditional Music.

Statewide Bookmans awards $21,000 to three Arizona schools in their Bookmans School Challenge for schools who demonstrate excellence, innovation and creativity in education. Our Community Relations Manager for Flagstaff visits many of the public and charter schools where she talks to teachers, students and staff members about the accomplishments and needs of their schools.

Bookmans is a Title Sponsor of the Northern Arizona Book Festival contributing funds, on-site entertainment, prizes and labor to the success of this important literary event, which helps benefit Literacy Volunteers of Coconino County.

Each month Bookmans Flagstaff provides between five and fifteen free arts events and workshops for the public, including weekly story times with free kids' crafts, a musical party for kids the first Saturday of every month, bimonthly adult arts and crafts workshops. We employ countless local writers, authors and musicians in the Flag Cafe and provide free wall space for local visual artists looking to promote and sell their original work.

Whether creating our own programs to further the arts in Flagstaff or supporting the many worthy organizations and events that promote the arts and sciences there, Bookmans chooses to invest money and time to support the vibrancy of of the Northern Arizona community. It's impossible to list all the ways we give back to the communities who have given us so much, but taking a look at some of the highlights one store contributed provides a pretty good idea about how excited we are to be part of your community. Please consider shifting the way you shop in 2012.