Wilmington woman creating online guide to support local businesses

WILMINGTON, NC (WWAY) — The New Year is almost upon us and one Wilmington woman is looking to make it easier for people to support local businesses in the Cape Fear region in 2025.

Wilmington native Maggie Pendergrass is working on an online guide listing hundreds of businesses in the Cape Fear.

On December 26th, Pendergrass posted to the Wilmington Community Facebook page, asking people to share the names of local businesses, whether brick-and-mortar or online only.

Within 24 hours, the post had received more than 400 comments.

“This is purely a passion project that kind of just got legs and started running on its own.”

Pendergrass said she came up with this idea because she wanted to spend more money shopping locally.

“Be really conscious about where I’m buying, who I’m buying from, instead of just finding the path of least resistance and ordering on Amazon or from a big box store,” Pendergrass said. “I really wanted to be intentional with where my dollars were going and supporting local businesses that really cared about our community.”

She said information such as the business name, website, and social media handles will be placed in a spreadsheet and made available for people to access and interact with.

“And then Phase 2 would be more of a kind of built out website source. Ideally, we would kind of integrate some sort of filtering system where people can kind of type in what they’re looking for, have a search bar, find what they need really quickly.”

She’d like to create a guide that encompasses much of Wilmington, from stores and restaurants to artisans and small vendors.

“My hope is that we can really create kind of a comprehensive resource for people in Wilmington so that they don’t have to say well, I don’t know where else to go, I’ll just order it off of X-Y-Z site,” Pendergrass said.

Pendergrass said the spreadsheet will be finished around the middle of January, and the website will be ready near the start of February.