Black Friday typically focuses on big box retailers. But where do your local small mom-and-pop shops fit in?

Small Business Saturday.

From Kansas City to Topeka, to Olathe and Lee’s Summit to small towns like Versailles and Mexico, Missouri, millions across the nation will fill the streets of their small shopping centers, downtown squares and boutique and historical shopping areas today.

They may not know it but it’s a celebration of the real people that make America’s economy hum–the small business.

Begun by American Express in 2010 as a marketing tactic, “Small Business Saturday” was a retail holiday for small business after Thanksgiving and Black Friday.

It has grown into a nationwide grassroots movement to save America’s little retail shops.

Consumers, the media and even public officials now embrace the new holiday. Everyone, it seems, feels great about “shopping small.” Who doesn’t love the small business?

Every American should be thankful for small business. Businesses that you drive or walk by with nary a thought, actually account for half of our economy.

While the drop in stock price for Amazon or Apple or GM can mean a huge stock slide, it is the small business that keeps America’s economy stable.

With a focus on service, good products and reinvestment in their communities, small businesses support our local economies and infrastructure in ways you may not have thought.

With the growth of online retailers, small businesses have fought their way back and said, “Hey! Don’t forget about us!”

People heard and are responding. In countless homes across the nation on Christmas morning you’ll find unique gifts, purchased at the little shop around the corner, nestled under the tree alongside the electronics and gadgets so common these days.

So today, on Small Business Saturday, celebrate Main Street – not Wall Street. Your local small business creates and sustains an economic resurgence that the world currently envies.

Best of all, you’re supporting your neighbor, cousin and the person sitting next to you at the high school sporting event and school play.

Doesn’t that make your heart warm?

–Dwight Widaman is editor of metrovoicenews.com