Lucinda Guess and Clay Guess with B.E. Guess & Sons Pecan Company has been locally operated by the Guess family for 70 years.

VALDOSTA — The holidays are all about giving and local government is giving area businesses support through Small Business Saturday.

Lowndes County Commission Chairman Bill Slaughter presented B.E. Guess & Sons Pecan Company, locally and family owned and operated since 1953, with a signed proclamation declaring Nov. 26 Small Business Saturday, encouraging all residents to support small businesses “that create jobs, boost our local economy and preserve our neighborhoods.”

Clay Guess, current owner of Guess Pecan Company, said the company is honored to be presented with the small business proclamation as “local business is the backbone of the community.”

“We’re pecan brokers; so we’ll buy from an average Joe that has a few pecan trees in their yard to the big guys who have a couple hundred acres of trees. Everything is Georgia Grown products. We do what we can to support local farmers and help with agriculture in the community,” he said.

Small Business Saturday was first observed in 2010 by American Express as a counterpart to Black Friday and Cyber Monday, which focuses more on chain department stores and online shopping.

“We want the community to jump on any opportunity to shop local. Black Friday is for the big box stores but the Saturday after that is just as important as it is one of the busiest shopping days of the year,” he said.

Rachel Thrasher, county community development director, said there are more than 5,000 small businesses in Lowndes County and money spent at small businesses circulates back to the community at a higher rate than big box stores.

“When you talk about a dollar spent at the bigger stores versus a small business, 70 cents of that dollar stays local when you shop small, but 70 cents goes away when you shop big,” she said.