CHICAGO (NewsNation Now) — Small Business Saturday is a nationally recognized day in which the local community makes a large push for its consumers to support local.

It’s always the Saturday following Thanksgiving and Black Friday each year for this specific reason.

Back in 2011, the Senate unanimously passed a resolution in support of Small Business Saturday, originally founded by American Express in 2010.

Although the day has been recognized for more than 10 years now, and for local businesses, this year’s Small Business Saturday is more important than ever.

“I think this year specifically, Small Business Saturday is more important than ever,” said Jayson Manship, owner of Moonshot Games. “We saw a big uptick of people wanting to shop small at the beginning of COVID. Then, when the pandemic hit, they said, ‘We really want to make sure local businesses that we care about, that are pouring into our communities, survive.'”

“We thrived in those moments,” Manship continued.

Today, there are over 32.5 million small businesses in the United States.

“A statistic that people are oftentimes surprised at is the fact that in the state of Indiana, 99 percent of businesses are considered small businesses and they employ almost 50 percent of folks living in Indiana,” explained Laura Schafsnitz of the Small Business Administration.

After the Coronavirus pandemic hit in 2020, supporting small businesses became extremely vital to the survival of the local economy.

“What we’ve been able to do, as Small Business Administration, is we’ve been able to provide several different relief programs and funding programs for small businesses to help them survive during the pandemic,” said Schafsnitz.

A very popular resource that has been helpful to small businesses is SBA’s resource partners. These partners help small businesses rethink their business in new and innovative ways. But, of course, the most popular way is to move their business(es) to an online-shopping option or an app.

“When you live in a community, you want to support it. They’re your family. Small business is the backbone of the American economy,” said Schafsnitz

“So supporting small business? Absolutely. Do it on Small Business Saturday, do it on Black Friday, do it every day of the week.”

Matt Sapaula, of moneysmartguy.com, recommends using hashtags like #shopsmall or #smallbusinesssaturday on social media to find local businesses to shop with that you may not find on Google.

You can also visit American Express’ website to find local businesses near you.

NewsNation affiliate contributed to this report