Kathryn Witherington: Walla Walla's 12th Man

WALLA WALLA—It’s just after 10 a.m. Monday morning, and Kathryn Witherington, Executive Director of the Downtown Walla Walla Foundation (DWWF), is already brimming with ideas.

When we met back in August 2019, Witherington worked for the Port of Columbia and kindly escorted me through all the businesses that seemed to be thriving at the Rock Hill Industrial Park. Since then, her talent for ideation has led her to Walla Walla County, where she is still finding personal ways to connect local businesses with the communities they serve.

The mission of the DWWF is to promote the history, culture, and commerce of Downtown Walla Walla and it’s no secret that commerce has suffered this year. Some of the challenges presented have seemed insurmountable, yet Witherington is not one to give up.

Enter the Gift Local Gift Line, a complimentary service that provides personalized gift suggestions from items found locally from budgets $0-10,000. Foundation staff even provide gift wrapping and delivery to further facilitate the process.

But how do the gift ideas come together? One at a time, personally. Like snowflakes, no two are alike. There is no prepared list for Witherington to work from. Rather she creates each gift idea based on her intimate knowledge of the businesses downtown. Through formal meetings with business owners when she began at the foundation, and perhaps most importantly, wandering around the area and getting to know its businesses in person, she is now able to build gift lists with a personal touch.

The idea is to aid shoppers with their hard-to-shop-for friends and family members and help local retailers learn what customers are looking for and how much they plan on spending. Witherington is a conduit of commerce and a database of shopping insight.

“It’s largely kitchenware, food and drink gifts, lots of games, which isn’t a surprise when we’re all stuck at home. No one’s buying clothes, and for the most part, their budgets are about $40,” Witherington shared.

This is useful knowledge for retailers who can tailor storefront displays and featured items to suit shoppers’ needs.

Witherington said the gift line came together quickly since the phone line was the same one from the farmer’s market.

Using some of the infrastructure in place from the farmer’s market, the gift line was able to start up quickly. At the moment all the requests are handled by Witherington who says she will enlist the help of foundation staff members, Alex Heiser and Cindy Frost if it gets too busy.

“If for some reason it gets so busy that we need more than the three of us, then that means it was a huge success. It has been successful so far. And if it continues at its current rate of growth, I may need some help,” said the director.

So far, Witherington’s favorite gift list email was from a woman named Amanda.

“She lives in Europe, but her parents are local, so she emailed me to ask, ‘can you really make gift suggestions, and can you really gift wrap them and deliver them to my parents’ house? This feels too good to be true.’ She’s someone who 100% would have just ordered from somewhere online to get something to her parents this year and hope that it got there. Instead, she got to support a local business, and we get to deliver Christmas presents. How great is that?”

Witherington’s next big idea, Be the 12th Man Walla Walla, launches December 19 and runs through Superbowl Sunday, February 7th.

“For many of our retailers, not just in Walla Walla but statewide, sales are down significantly. In our area, the trend, no matter what, is that January, February, and March are dead,” Witherington said. “Typically, a business spends in March, April, and May building out of that dead period and then makes their profit over the summer. This year they lost the time to build out of the dead-period, so everyone is behind. In addition to wanting to spur on holiday shopping with the gift line,” Witherington continued, “it was important to create something that could increase local spending throughout January. Local spending is the only thing that will help us right now,” said Witherington noting that tourists are few and far between in January, in a pandemic.

In response to these hardships, the DWWF is launching a local spending campaign called 12th Man Walla Walla between December 19 and February 7. For every $12 spent at a Walla Walla business, you get entered in a raffle to win all sorts of fun football-themed prizes. Witherington is planning weekly drawings of giveaways of football merchandise and experiences and other fun things to hopefully encourage people to spend $12.

“I want people to realize that as little as $12 can make a difference,” Witherington continued, “many of these businesses are 3-6 months from closing. It’s really hard to say that, and it’s really hard to write that in a way that doesn’t feel hopeless. I like the football theme because, in an NFL football game, you have a 2-minute warning. Our team is down right now, and we can either throw in the towel and give up, or we have basically two minutes to come back and win this thing. This is our last stand; let’s be strategic; let’s support our team.”

The DWWF will launch a call to action video this week.

Based on lessons learned from the previous lockdown, this initiative is something that can be in-store or online in case restrictions tighten further. Entries will be tracked through email; simply send an image of a receipt from a local business to kathryn@downtownwallawalla.com. Each $12 spent is then entered into the weekly drawing as well as the grand prize to be drawn on February 7.

The Gift Local Gift Line is open seven days a week through December 24th from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. Call or text (509) 240-2898, and share information about who the gift is for. Missed calls, texts, and emails are returned as quickly as possible. Gift delivery is guaranteed within one day of purchase. Though their presence was not at first detected, surely some elves must work in that office.