People being asked to help Oldtown Salinas after power outage

This weekend people are spending a little green to help out businesses who were in the black after recent storms shut down power.

“My friend said hey we got to help Oldtown, its part of our culture and community,” said Anna Munoz of Marina. “I said well lets go.”

“Shop local whenever you can,” said Jill Anderson from Sacramento.

Rollick’s Coffee was out of power from Friday all the way through Wednesday.

“Every day my manager would open up but there was no luck,” said Rollick’s Coffee barista Michael Austen. “We had to toss out like three fridges of milk.”

Valley Art Gallery was also in the dark for five days. Missing out on business from President’s Day weekend hit a sore spot.

“That is usually a big weekend,” said Valley Art Gallery Co-founder Elsie Dill. “We have the customers from the breakfast place and the different things come down here and stop and shop. They’re usually from out of town, different areas. So we lost that business, but it’s gone.”

Now that Oldtown is up and running, everyone is being asked to commit to spending $50 this weekend, which some people are having no problem doing.

“That antique block down there, we’re going to check that out,” said Anderson. “Then whatever else we see after we eat.”

“I got a massage which helped me and then we had some nice breakfast,” said Munoz. “Then we’ll pick up some clothes on the way out.”

Businesses said they are appreciative and definitely seeing support from the community.

“We usually have like a slower Friday unless it’s the first Friday of the month, but it was really busy this time around,” said Austen.

Shops also said they will try and recoup the loss funds by putting out more advertisement and capitalizing on other weekend events held in Oldtown.