With a total population of under a hundred thousand and three chambers of commerce in Talladega County, it only makes sense for those organizations to work together and pool their resources.

While each community, town and city in the county offers its own unique mix of businesses, industries, retail stores and restaurants, when taken as an entire package, the county offers an economic diversity to consumers more in line with a larger city than a rural county.

It’s that diversity that is so important for the chambers to be promoting.

To that end, the Greater Talladega Area, Sylacauga and Childersburg and Lincoln chambers of commerce are pooling their resources to hold the first countywide holiday open house this weekend.

Beginning at 9 a.m. Saturday and continuing Sunday from 1 to 5 p.m., businesses across Talladega County will be opening their doors to their communities. Restaurants, furniture stores, jewelry stores, antique shops, and more — just about every kind of company imaginable — do business in cities like Talladega, Munford, Sylacauga, Childersburg and Lincoln and in smaller communities in our area and will be showing off what they offer customers here.

The open house highlights the businesses in the area and drives home the idea that residents in Talladega County can do their shopping in Talladega County.

Putting that information into the hands of local consumers is a powerful tool and makes good economic sense — money spent here stays here and helps create and maintain jobs in the private sector at the same time generating more sales taxes to fund everything from road construction to education.

But what’s equally important is the cooperative effort by the three chambers of commerce to pull the whole event together. For far too long, Talladega County has been divided, with different regions often working at odds with each other.

By pooling resources like this, the chambers can together accomplish so much more for the region than any one of them could have alone.

This spirit of cooperation can only spell good things for Talladega County. We hope this is only the beginning and that it is a move that extends beyond just the chambers.

Think what could be accomplished if all the school systems, municipalities and other agencies across the county could follow the chambers’ lead and work for a common goal.