WESTFIELD – Later this month the Westfield Chamber of Commerce will host a Shop to Win weekend where participants can visit various local businesses to be entered for a chance to win up to $500.

This event is sponsored by The Original Pennysaver and the game board is in this week’s edition.

Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Kate Phelon said the event is all about shopping locally. She said, “Shop to Win is a new game designed to help shoppers shift their shopping to local, independent choices. It’s fun, easy and can be played Friday and Saturday with three chances to win.”

Phelon added that the prizes are for $150, $300 and $500 respectively.

The event started when the Chamber was given an opportunity from the Downtown Merchant Group, an initiative that focuses on advocating for local merchants. From there, the Chamber started reaching out to local merchants to see if they were interested.

“The Chamber went knocking on doors to see if the merchants wanted to participate. The response was more than expected,” Phelon said.

From that point, Phelon said, the Chamber created two committees for the game board, one for the board itself and the other for marketing. The idea for the game board was inspired by Monopoly.

“The Game Board Committee developed the idea of a monopoly board, as one printed years ago for a Westfield Monopoly game- and we loved the idea so much we adopted it to make it our own for Shop Small,” she explained.

 Phelon said she was happy to finally be able to organize a community event on the scale of the Shop Small game board, after being unable to in the past.

“We, along with the 40 businesses we have on board, are very excited! This year since we have the resources and assistance from local merchants, we were finally able to work together and create an amazing event like this,” Phelon said.

Shop Small takes place Nov. 29 and 30. Participants should save their copy of the game board in this week’s Pennysaver. Residents must receive a stamp from 10 different businesses, and while shopping is encouraged, no purchase is necessary to receive a stamp.

Once shoppers have received their 10 stamps from participating businesses, Phelon said that they can drop the game boards off at Choice Health, Flowers by Webster, Mina’s Wine & Spirits, Pilgrim Candle and Skyline Trading Company to be entered into the raffle for the three prizes. Participants will have to wait until the week of Dec. 2 when the winners will be announced.

 “I think it is important to recognize the wonderful collaboration of volunteers and businesses to work together in an effort to boost our local economy. We could not have pulled this off without them and our sponsors, The Pennysaver and Staples,” Phelon said.