During the 2024 holiday season, the Canarsie Merchants Association (CMA) organized a lineup of engaging events and initiatives designed to support our local merchants and strengthen the sense of community among residents.
Throughout December, we hosted a series of family-friendly activities, including pop-up markets, Canarsie Restaurant Week, Holiday Window Decorating Competition, Holiday Door Decorating Competition and our Third Annual Holiday Concert and Tree Lighting event that drew everyone together to celebrate the season.
As part of our ongoing initiative to encourage the community to shop locally, we organized Canarsie Restaurant Week. This event aimed to promote and support local restaurants by offering special promotions and incentives. During that week, participating restaurants provided discounts on their menus. During the holiday season, people tend to eat out more while spending time with their loved ones. Canarsie has a wide variety of dining options, ensuring there’s something for everyone to enjoy without having to leave the neighborhood. If anyone had difficulty choosing a restaurant, they had the option to use the CMA Map of Canarsie for suggestions.
In the past, Canarsie residents were able to enjoy holiday lights throughout the corridors. While we work toward adding lights along the corridors, we are exploring other ways to brighten the community. We organized our first Holiday Window Competition for local merchants. This initiative was to encourage more holiday lights during the festive season. We challenged merchants to decorate their storefronts with a primary focus on adding lights. They had two weeks to decorate starting the week of Thanksgiving and then the judges went to the businesses to vote for their favorite. In the end, Trending Cutz won, receiving a check of $250 and a citation from Councilwoman Mercedes Narcisse.
We aimed to involve schools in the holiday activities by hosting a Classroom Door Decorating Competition, challenging elementary, middle and high schools to decorate their classroom doors. It was a fun activity to bring out the creativity in the students. The winner received a pizza party from their selected business of choice along with merchandise from CMA. Mrs. Jones’ class at P.S. 276 won with their math door and selected Original Pizza on Avenue L for their pizza party.
This holiday season was a year of many firsts for us, and we plan to continue with these initiatives in the future. We hope everyone continues to support us on our journey.
Courtesy of Canarsie Merchants Association
