The city of Concord is encouraging people to shop locally by funding the relaunch of an e-gift card program in which people buying a gift card to use at local businesses can receive a bonus card.

The Shop Concord program got an initial $10,000 in funding from the city in November for gift cards and relaunched the program in May with another $10,000. People who buy a $50 card can get a $25 bonus card, or if they buy a $20 card they can get a $10 bonus card. The bonus cards are available until all $10,000 is used up.

The program via the city and the Greater Concord Chamber of Commerce is meant to help increase sales at local businesses as they recover from the effects of the pandemic. The initial launch in November saw 978 e-gift cards purchased.

Information on how to purchase the cards and a list of participating businesses is available online.

“Shop Concord provides a direct benefit to our community, as we saw in late 2020. The collective wave of gift card purchases will go a long way toward helping our local businesses bounce back faster,” Concord Mayor Tim McGallian said in a news release.

Dan McMenamin is the managing editor at Bay City News, directing daily news coverage of the 12-county greater Bay Area. He has worked for BCN since 2008 and has been managing editor since 2014 after previously serving as BCN’s San Francisco bureau reporter. A UC Davis graduate, he came to BCN after working for a newspaper and nonprofit in the Davis area. He handles staffing, including coaching of our interns, day-to-day coverage decisions and management of the newswire.