Local business: The Sentinel wants help your holiday sales

Are you a local small business owner looking to increase your holiday sales during this holiday season? Let the Sentinel help. Starting Monday we are creating a local gift guide for shoppers who live in the communities we serve.

Did you know nearly two-thirds of shoppers are looking for curated gift lists online? Yeah, neither did we until we started doing the research on how to create a successful guide for our readers.

The Sentinel Holiday Gift Guide is designed to increase the visibility of your business and products. We want to help as many small businesses that we can ring in some extra sales over the next three weeks. Here's another fact: Gift guides are shown to more than double conversion rates and increase engagement by 76% especially for online retailers.

Like other small business ventures, the pandemic has kicked our virtual news tushy. With over 500 readers a day and plenty of time on our hands, we figure we can lend a helping hand to area small business with lots of free publicity. Sixty-six percent of holiday buyers plan to shop more at locally this holiday season and we want to make it easy for them by shining a light on products and services from area small businesses.

So what is this going to cost to be featured? Nothing. Zilch. Nada. We are looking highlight and share awesome gift ideas to our readers. Hopefully, our guide will keep people buying local and rebuild the local economy.

If you have a product or service you would like featured in the gift guide, simply copy the section below, paste it into a new email message to and advertising@oursentinel.com after you have answered the questions. Owners are welcome to submit as many items as they wish. We will select only one item every seven days to feature.

If you have any questions don't hesitate to email us at advertising@oursentinel.com or call 217.778.2197.

Name of Business:

Contact Name:                                               Contact Phone Number:

Website Address:

Link to featured item on your website:

Description of the product or service:

 

Choose a category:
Category options: • Gifts under $25 • Gifts Women & Girls Will Love • Gifts for Men & Boys • Food • Gifts for Everyone
• Art & Home Decoration • For Newlyweds • Gifts for Students • Stocking Stuffers

Retail Price:                     Sale Price:
(Enter Sale Price if the product/service is being offered at discount)

Please attach a photo of the featured item or service. Make sure it is a sharp, well-exposed image will do your product or service justice. The better the photo the better your odds at attracting buyers. Photo should be no smaller than 400 pixels on the longest side at 96 DPI.

Questions? Email us at advertising@oursentinel.com or peck 217.778.2197. Holiday gift guide features will be processed on a first come, first serve basis until December 23. Featured items will appear on The Sentinel website and shared on our social media platforms.

Active COVID cases at 100 or under third consecutive day

While Illinois saw a record 238 deaths from COVID-19 virus on Wednesday, locally for a third consecutive day the number of active cases within The Sentinel area of coverage has remained at 100 or less.

Wednesdays figure from the Illinois Department of Public Health surpassed the high of 191 set back in mid-May. Health officials admitted that the new high could be from delayed reporting of data over the Thanksgiving weekend.

"Today marks a solemn milestone, with 238 lives lost to COVID-19 reported in the last 24 hours," Governor J.B. Pritzker said during his Wednesday coronavirus update. "We'll continue to watch these numbers closely in the coming weeks to have a better picture of our trajectory, but a life lost, reported late, following a holiday, is still a life lost."

As of today the Champaign-Urbana Public Health District is reporting the six villages The Sentinel covers has 97 active case, up three from Wednesday's 94.There are 11 active cases in Ogden, 9 in Philo, 2 in Royal, 5 in Sidney, 45 in St. Joseph and Tolono has 25 reported cases.

On Tuesday, the CUPHD reported 100 cases, a number our area last witnessed on November 15 when the area went from 69 to 110 cases overnight. The rolling average the last seven days of November was 127 cases.

Photo of the Day - December 3, 2020

Victory Dance

St. Joseph-Ogden dance team member Kirsten Dalton performs during halftime of the Spartans' football game against Iroquois West with the SJO Dance. The Spartans improved to 3-2 on the season after rolling to 34-14 homecoming victory over the visiting Raiders on September 26, 2008.

PhotoNews/Clark Brooks

The Giving Place helped Unit 7 families

The Giving Place is a community outreach program that helps those going through hard times economically. Designed to help families in the Unit 7 school district, the ministry provides food and clothing for those in need.

In the past week, The Giving Place provided assistance to 12 families, 25 adults and eight children.

The charitable organization thanked Pastor Catherine Thomas and several volunteers for serving those who sought help during the past week and for their help in cleaning, sorting and stocking racks on Wednesday. They also thanked everyone who generously donated food or money to the ministry to make their work possible.

"We are in need of the following items: canned fruit, (especially pears, fruit cocktail, mandarin oranges, pineapple & applesauce), snack items of all kinds, and peanut butter," wrote Mike Williams in an email.

Normally, The Giving Place does not accepting clothing items, but with cold, winter weather now settling in East Central Illinois, they are now accepting donations of new or gently used, clean winter coats, hats and gloves/mittens. Due to the COVID-19 crisis, the organization is not accepting new volunteers at this time.

IHSA reconfirms no high school sports until 2021

Illinois High School Association Executive Director Craig Anderson reiterated in a statement yesterday that the Board of Directors for the organization has no expectation to begin any winter sports seasons until 2021.

Meanwhile, despite the state under the Governor J.B. Pritzker's Tier 3 Resurgence Mitigation restrictions, the Illinois Department of Public Health (IDPH) reported 9,757 new confirmed and probable cases of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in Illinois, including 238 additional deaths yesterday. The statewide December 2 statistics marks the highest number of single-day fatalities from the disease in Illinois since May.

The statement comes as no real surprise as a large number of communities and counties around the state continue to resist adopting and following state health department's mandates and governor's guidance during a time when normal seasonal airborne viral infections flourish.

"To reiterate, the Board has no expectation to begin any winter sports seasons until 2021, but will remain agile in their preparation and willingness to adapt should a window present itself sooner," Anderson said.

He explained that the Board remains committed to creating as much opportunity as possible for all sports that remain to be played this school year and they ask that schools be adaptable in the coming New Year as more information and guidance becomes available from the IDPH and the governor. The start and ending dates are fluid depending on when the winter season can official resume.

"Given Governor Pritzker’s current mitigations, the Board has no expectation of starting low risk winter sports prior to January. The Board and IHSA staff will continue to monitor the Tier 3 Resurgence Mitigation in effect currently. When there is a timeline for the state to emerge from these restrictions, the Board is prepared to restart lower risk winter sports quickly," Anderson said. "In addition, the Board hopes to reestablish contact days in January for any winter sports that cannot begin, as well as spring and summer sports. The introduction of the contact days will be based on mitigations from the Governor and the Illinois Department of Public Health at that time. Further guidance on contact days limits will be established at a future Board meeting."