space

we contacted a friend of ours who had several relationships with business people who might be interested in financing our idea. we held several meetings trying to develop a proposal attractive enough to entice a business person to invest. it was difficult, though, to make the idea for a fair trade store appealing from a strictly business perspective. we really needed to find someone with financial resources who was whole-heartedly behind the mission of fair trade.

around this time (early summer), we happened to be walking down main street looking at buildings (something we did quite often then) and we noticed a storefront for rent. we had known that the occupant was going to be moving across the street, but we hadn't paid too much attention to the space because we had never gotten a really good look at it (it was a consignment store and they needed to move because they had run out of space). they had just moved, though, so we could finally see what the space looked like empty. and it was beautiful--hardwood floors, tin ceilings.

we walked across the street to ask the owner about the space and she gave us a key to go inside to have a look around. so we went over, let ourselves in and fell in love. barring a few cosmetic changes (paint, lighting), the space was ready to go. the upstairs hadn't been used in about 30 years and was pretty raw, but, after renovation, it could potentially serve as an apartment. the owner told us that she would be willing to sell or rent, whatever worked out for us.

we decided rather quickly that we should commit to at least renting the building, and then figure out if we could possibly purchase the building later. so, we cobbled some money together and signed a lease that provided us the entire summer to renovate without paying rent.

you can see some before and after photos at the world fare site.

now we were back to the money question again. we had committed to a space, but we still had no idea how we were going to pay for the renovations, the initial merchandise or any other expenses. we figured we had to raise about $25,000 to make this whole thing work.