Today I would like personally thank the 70 individuals who donated and helped promote this Change.org campaign. Every time someone donates money to promote this petition, every cent is used by Change.org to help advertise the petition on social media sites, the Change.org search engine, and other various websites. This helps to encourage a larger recognition of the need to save our local bookstore and show that we are serious about saving Booksellers. As a side note, petitions with several hundred thousand signatures usually have just a few hundred “supporters” who donate money to promote a petition. So, for a petition nearing 3,000 signatures to have 70 donors is incredible and a testament to the quality of support from each and every one of you. Why should you encourage others to sign this petition? One signature can’t make the difference between saving and not saving Booksellers, right? Unfortunately, that’s not the right mentality for the type of petition we have going. We need support from our local leaders and powerful individuals to make sure Booksellers stays right where it is. And how do we get the support of local leaders and powerful individuals? Leaders have a lot of voices to listen to and they have to make the decision (at their discretion) to choose the voices they listen to. Therefore, most leaders typically listen to the loudest voices. Essentially, the more signatures we garner, the louder our voice becomes. Wait, local leaders aren't looking at this petition every day to see how many signatures we have? You're right. But that's only because they don't need to. Every time someone signs this petition, all six of the individuals on this petition receive an email with the petition attached. Let's think about that for a minute…these people have received over 2,600 signatures with their name attached as a decision maker, and that really is why every signature is important. Because they are constantly receiving a reminder that people care about this issue. When people care about an issue, leaders listen. Not only that, but whenever they think citizens are starting to forget about this petition…BOOM! 100 more signatures and 100 more emails. Some of the decision makers on this petition had no role in what lead up to the announcement of the closing of Booksellers; however, they are the ones with the ability to make changes happen. So, while you can contact your local leaders to let them personally know about this issue, getting others to sign this petition is just as important. Keep reading updates as I've got some exciting news for later this week. I'm still ironing out the details. Remember #MemphisGetsLit, Emmett Miskell