Ladies dressed in floral print and leis walked the streets of Ellensburg as they were getting pampered by the local businesses. The Ellensburg Downtown Association hosted Girls Night Out on Thursday, May 9, from 5-9 p.m. This event takes place twice a year, once in the winter around December and once in the spring. The event included several local businesses across downtown Ellensburg.

Girls Night Out highlights women in the community and gives them a night to shop, taste, dine and drink at the local shops and restaurants. Every business that participated had different deals or promotions. For example, Head to Toe Salon was offering $8 eyebrow waxing and a draw your own retail discount promotion. This year there was a luau theme. Participating stores served Hawaiian-themed beverages, snacks and luau themed attire for customers to wear.

Girls Night Out was sponsored by Collection Interiors, Claim Clothing and Gard Vintners. The sponsors of the event had twice the amount of raffle tickets compared to other businesses for the gift baskets that were being given out. The gift baskets contained items from the participating shops.

Thirty two businesses participated in the event, including Blue Rock Saloon, D&M Coffee, Ellensburg Brewing Co. and Head to Toe Salon. Aside from Maurice’s Boutique, all of the stores that participated were local businesses. Rachel Crits of Pearl Street Optical also had LayZ Rose Boutique from Omak, Washington in the shop selling clothes and jewelry, and there was a DoTerra consultant there as well. The consultant was showing people how to make mixes of essential oils for different occasions. One of the mixes shown was supposed to help you sleep better, and it could be applied directly on the skin. Crits said she has participated in every Girls Night Out since she opened in 2015.

“[The event] is fun and shows off the inventory that I have in the store, and gets my name out there, and I get to hang out with girls,” Crits said.

Megan West, owner of Claim Boutique, said she thinks it is great to have an event that brings people, women in particular, together. It especially gets other businesses in the community to interact with one another. The deals Claim Boutique had for the event were $14 sandals and 15 percent off on all dresses. West said they would make great dresses for graduations, photoshoots and wedding guests for the oncoming summer.

Jennifer Lant owns Three Winds Artisan Collectives, which sells local and regional handmade items that are also eco-conscious and fair trade. Lant said that she has items in her store that are from 17 different women-owned stores. Lant said one of her favorite things about Girls Night Out is the festive tone. Lant was a vendor at Girls Night Out as a featured artist for four years before opening her own store, and this is her first year being a shop owner during the event. Lant said that having events that draw people downtown is important for the small businesses, and some people say they never knew her shop was there until an event.

“Having a thriving downtown is important for the community,” Lant said.