The Eastside Cannery Project is moving right along! Volunteers are slated to glean from Grant Family Farm's fields tomorrow, November 1st. Canning will begin on Monday, and Kate's Restaurant on 35th is graciously providing her kitchen for canning. The veggies from Grant Farms will include beets, broccoli and squash!

We're very excited to announce the East Side Cannery, a project formed in conjunction with business alliance member SOLAR, and with support from the Denver Foundation's Strengthening Neighborhoods Project. (read more about how the project works)

This project supports our community in several fundamental ways, including:

Today the BALLE networks participated in a conference call with Doug Hammond (the new E.D. of BALLE) and Michael H. Shuman, author of Going Local and The Small-mart Revolution. Here are some highlights/notes from the call:

There are four primary issues facing our communities and economy:

1. Rising oil / energy costs
2. Climate Change
3. Value of dollar decreasing
4. Recent Financial Crisis

With the economy dominating news and politics, and the market crisis impacting businesses everywhere, we are faced with an uncertain future and real challenges. Investments are literally disappearing off the books, and credit is scarce. We just don't have the money we need to keep our businesses going and to pay our bills. And with local businesses in our neighborhoods closing every day, we can't afford to wait for Washington to figure out a solution that will work for us.

So then what can we do?

This week's Local Biz Coffee Meeting was filled with amazing conversations - everything from the state of the economy (and what we can do about it) to community building and blogging software. These meetings are truly an opportunity to build relationships and business connections, but also, a place for us to come together and talk about the issues we're facing. As local business owners, this includes how to find more clients, what to do about the lack of capital flowing and how to be more connected to our neighbors. You can read more about our last meeting on Beth's blog, Living the Mile High Life.

I just read this article in the Washington Post about the proposed $700B bailout of private banking and financial institutions failing in a 228-205 vote in the House. I haven't written about the current market crisis here yet, because I've been contemplating the effect on us, local businesses here in Colorado.

The Mile High Business Alliance is excited to announce our participation in "Local Motive," an event to promote green jobs and connect folks with sustainable living resources in our community. The event, also a fund-raiser for the vegetarian community cafe Solar, will take place Saturday, September 27th from 11:00 am - 11:00 pm at Solar,  2615 Welton St. in Denver. Featuring art, music, film and DIY presentations, Local Motive is part of Green Jobs Now's National Day of Action.

Any of you who have experienced the independent theater Neighborhood Flix already know what a jewel it is in Denver. No more smelly theaters with bad tasting expensive popcorn. If you truly love going to the movies, this is the place to be.

Neighborhood Flix, like all independent, local, small businesses, have stiff competition with the national brands. And we here at the business alliance believe that the best way to succeed when faced with companies with deeper pockets is to come together as a community.

If you love independent business and want to make a real impact in ensuring our community contains unique and good businesses, here's your chance.

Have you checked out our events calendar recently? There is so much happening! Make the most of these last weeks of warm weather by getting out and connecting with your neighbors at one of these events:

Tenn-Low Turismo - Saturday 9/13: A neighborhood celebration with a scavenger hunt and after-party. Discover one of the city's best kept secrets in the Tennyson / Lowell District!

One of the biggest strengths of local businesses is our ability to create lasting relationships that inform, nurture and strengthen our businesses and those of our peers. Think about this: when the non-local competition faces increased costs and decreased revenue, what is their response? They close stores, lay people off, and demand lower prices from their vendors - anything to maintain the profit margins they (and their investors) require. And what about local businesses? How many of you have forgone your pay in order to pay your employees? Or given a little more time to your customers to pay that invoice?