This is the 16th in a year-long ‘Love for Local’ series called NB365: portraits of New Brunswick entrepreneurs, businesses and organizations. Every day, a new portrait will be shared through Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram and Huddle, a media partner with Love for Local. In this edition, Yannick and Emma Thériault of DAS Concrete Countertops explain why their company vision is in line with the support for local movement.

We decided to go into business because we had an idea that wouldn’t let us go – that is, a vision to make durable and sustainable surfaces more accessible in the form of simple, but beautiful pre-cast concrete slabs.

And, just as importantly, we saw the opportunity – by building a successful local business – to have a more significant impact on our community. Local businesses are the fabric of our community – they give our community its colour.

This in itself isn’t new, but what this year has driven home for us is the fact that these local businesses can’t and won’t exist if the local community doesn’t support them. And without them, our community would look pretty bleak. Even businesses with ambitions to grow and export need to start somewhere, and that somewhere is often in their own backyard.

When we support local, we are supporting friends, family and fellow entrepreneurs who, like us, are trying to make an impact. Supporting local can, paradoxically, cost more and take more effort. It’s a choice that not everyone has access to, but it’s a choice we’ve been making more often this year – in part because we recognize that in doing so, we are helping make those same choices more accessible to others in the long run. For all these reasons, supporting local feels good.