For many area businesses, the effects of the Sept. 11 attacks are beginning to fade as the community begins to look forward to the Thanksgiving and Christmas seasons. Shoppers return to the local shopping centers and department stores once again as things settle back into the old familiar patterns. “I don’t think that there was ever a time that I ever actually stopped shopping,” Lisa Ochomogo, senior, said. “One of the things that makes America’s economy so strong is the high level of consumer demand that we have here, so I guess that by refusing to allow my habits to be altered by the present events, I was in effect doing my part to ensure that it stays strong.”
However, Mike Kassouf, store manager of Starkville’s JC.Penny, reports that business did drop off at the time of the attacks.
“At that time, people were naturally concerned about the situation at hand,” Kassouf said. “I feel that for the first few days, a lot of people were probably glued to their TV sets.”
“The month of September is slow regardless,” Renee Zimmerman, general manager of Leigh Mall, said. “However, there was a slowdown of traffic in the days immediately following the Sept. 11 attacks.”
“In some ways, I think that the attacks on Sept. 11 did affect some of my habits,” Lindsey Stephens, freshman, said. “Like most people, I probably stayed in more to see what America was going to do about the matter, but I don’t think that it really had an adverse effect on my shopping habits.”
Regardless of whether shopping habits were affected, local companies are report that business has returned to normal at department stores and shopping centers.
“Although business dropped a little in the days following the attack on Afghanistan, now we’re pretty much back to normal here,” Kassouf said.
Zimmerman said that the same reversal is being seen among the stores that she manages.
“Everything appears to be turning back to normal. All of the department stores are turning in numbers that indicate that business is up,” she said.
Although businesses have managed to put the financial implications of Sept. 11 behind them, many of them are choosing to remember the attacks in a different way. Several of the area businesses are taking an avid interest in supporting charities designated for the victims of the World Trade Center disaster and the Pentagon attack. Local businesses and shopping centers are doing everything from supporting local fundraisers to donating sizable sums to the American Red Cross.
Zimmerman said that currently Leigh Mall is pursuing a different avenue of aiding the victims of Sept. 11.
“Right now, Leigh Mall is involved in a cooperative effort with over 400 different mall nationwide to sell the “United We Stand Calanders,” Zimmerman said. “The proceeds from these sales all goes to benefit the widows and children of the firefighters who lost their lives in the Sept. 11 attack.