ASHEVILLE, N.C. (WLOS) -- Small businesses in Asheville have seen an uptick in support this holiday season.
After losing the fall season, which is normally the busiest season for shops, businesses were struggling.
The businesses' struggle lessened over the last few weeks with locals really coming through for the downtown shops.
News 13 spoke with Rebecca Hecht, Shining Rock Goods Brand Ambassador, back in November when she expressed the concern many shops were feeling over the lack of customers.
But now Hecht said that she's consistently seen a ton of locals coming down and supporting businesses.
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"I've got feedback from multiple businesses who had been 80 percent down to having much better numbers now," Hecht said.
She said the weekends in particular have been busy which she credits to all the events that the downtown association and businesses have put on over the last month.
One of those was the "Shop Small, Win Big" program that launched in November; residents who shopped at certain small businesses were entered into a contest to win money.
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We spoke with the winner of the program, Robert Duffy, who's a 25-year Asheville resident.
Duffy said that he assisted with emergency response to Helene, and because of that he saw a lot of the devastation firsthand and made it his mission to give back.
"It was touching, I've spent a lot of time with people crying either tears of joy that we were there or tears of loss for a multitude of reasons," Duffy said.
Like many people, it's easy to shop with convenience online instead of supporting local shops, but Duffy said Helene changed his perspective on that.
"We like to spread it around based on what we're looking for and the ease by which we get in and out with parking and those types of things, the downtown effort this year we just decided to take a day off and shop locally," Duffy said.
He said not only was it fun shopping local, but it was great to give back, and that the money he won, will go right back into the community.
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Hecht said that having downtown filled like how it was before has been really encouraging.
"It does feel almost normal again," Hecht said.
While she said that they have started to see more tourists than before, it was the locals that kept them going.
While the boost before the holidays has helped businesses, there is still some fear with the slow months of January and February ahead.
"I think there is a great deal of nervousness and just wondering what's going to happen in what's normally a really slow time," Hecht said.