LORI
My husband, Joe, and I met in 1987, in Asheville, NC . We got married in January 1990 and on March 15, 1990, with two backpacks and NO keys, we got on a plane and moved to Anchorage, AK, fulfilling a lifelong desire we both shared. While we were there, Joe worked at REI and I started a pet sitting business which we owned for six years. We fished and played and enjoyed the vastness of the area. We always wanted children but had infertility problems. On December 6, 1995, our oldest son was born. We met him when he was two days old and it was love at first sight! (To erase any confusion, we adopted James.) About 3 months later, Joe and I looked at each other one night and simultaneously decided it was time to go home. We never really understood, until that moment, why we had always wanted to go to Alaska. But in that moment, we knew. It was to be with our son.

We moved back to Asheville in September of 1996. Back to where our friends and

family were so James could be loved by everyone here, too. In the spring of 2000, our family size doubled as we had triplets! Meghan, Topher and TJ were more miracles in our lives. Joe worked outside the home and I started my bookkeeping/tax/payroll business where I could work at home. We had prayed for another child and were blessed with three. (The joke became that you really need to be SPECIFIC in what you ask for!) We survived the first year with three infants and life did eventually start returning to normal. Well, as normal as normal can be with four children living in a small three bedroom/1bath home!

One night, I just was feeling something I hadn’t felt in quite some time. Joe, James and a good friend of ours, Thomas, had gone to…yes…a monster truck rally that night. After dinner with my mother and our trio, I stopped and picked up a test. Surely, I was out of my mind. We couldn’t have more children. We’d been told that. Lo and behold, the line turned into a plus sign and I walked around the house for a good hour with my jaw almost hitting the ground. No, this wasn’t possible! What would Joe say? And the big question…..was it more than one again? Alas, Frankie was just one, and yes, he was/is the last of our Kane Krew. Of that, we made sure. So, for a couple who was told many times we would never have children, we ended up with five! Moral of this story: NEVER say never!

And here we are today. We found our dream home in the summer of 2007 and moved out to Fairview. We love our new community.

Where did the idea for Support-Local.com come from? We looked around us, thought deeply about our feelings of where things are headed, and realized even more how important the little guys, the locals are. A couple months back I wrote an article for my bookkeeping business’ newsletter about buying local and I got to thinking about the need that exists for there to be a place people can go to find out about local businesses (without having to sort through all the big guys who pay more money to be on top), where they can read local articles about local things, to find discounts to encourage them to buy and shop locally, find money saving tips, a place where it’s just about the LOCAL stuff. And hence, Support-Local.com was born. We also firmly believe that there is no reason whatsoever for effective, top notch advertising to be cost prohibitive and for that reason, our advertising costs will be very low.

This is not an extremist site, although those who can be extreme are more than welcome! You very well may find me on some days shopping for laundry soap and such at a store owned by the big guys. I have a family to take care of and yes, in the laundry soap arena, they are cheaper. But we are doing more and more in our lives to support those in our community by buying local, by frequenting local businesses whenever and wherever possible. We are much more conscious of our decisions these days and how they affect the big picture. We have a beautiful vegetable garden planted, we’ve just put in rain barrels to water that garden, we’re building a chicken coop so we can have chickens. We’re taking little steps one at a time. If we all start doing that….well, just imagine!