World Fare: September 2003 Archives

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.

our original idea for this entire venture revolved around two connected storefronts which were selling for an insanely cheap price (something like $60,000 for over 5,000 square feet of retail space--not to mention the second floor). we had plans to open a fair trade store in one storefront and a fair trade coffee house in the other.

we met with several influential people in the community, including the mayor (the owner of the book store), to test the feasibility of our ideas. after many discussions with many people, we came to the conclusion that three rivers was a community that was ready for this kind of a retail operation. we also quickly realized that attempting to open both operations at once was not going to be possible (or wise) and that the original property we had looked into was not going to work.

the entire time we were researching this project, we were working under the assumption that we would purchase the building in which the store would operate. we looked at every building on the market for several months and decided on one with unique character (it featured a walk-through that went underneath the building to the other side) and a manageable amount of space (about 800 square feet).

now, we just had to figure out how we, people with very little financial resources, were going to be able to make this work.

kirstin and i moved to three rivers, michigan, at the end of last year because we could no longer financially able to pay rent and because we were hoping to focus more on *cino-related activities. kirstin's grandparents were kind enough to allow us to move to their summer lake cottage for a temporary, rent-free home.

we were only supposed to stay for about six months, but, after exploring three rivers, we've decided to stay indefinitely. in fact, we started the store and i've gone back to school (goshen college), so we'll be here for a while.

why did we decide to start the store?

well, here goes . . .

the first time we walked into our present church home, st. john's lutheran, we noticed they were serving fair trade coffee and tea. so we knew there would be people with shared values in the church.

and there were. we met jeff keefer and brianne donaldson (who are married) during that first visit and connected immediately. they have since become amazing friends. they were trying to convince us to stay in three rivers from the day they met us. once bri found out that kirstin had worked in a fair trade store, she encouraged us (strongly) to start a store here.

so we figured we would explore the idea to see if it would even be a possibility.

to be continued . . . (i don't suppose i need to say that, since this is a blog and you expect that out of me)

we've been having a number of good days since we opened the store on august 31. for example, today we've sold over $270 in merchandise. i know that's a good day, of course, but i didn't fully realize how good.

kirstin explained that the fair trade store she worked in previously rarely had days where sales neared $300. in fact, days like that were regarded as quite remarkable there.

so that's pretty cool. it must mean the community supports the cause of the store, or at least the cause of purchasing cool things for their homes.