Another one bites the dust.

Shopping locally: I've been meaning to write about this subject for some time, but like I've said in the past, everything happens for a reason. A friend turned me on to a website called the 3/50 project today, irony I swear.  It is a website dedicated to helping small businesses stay afloat by encouraging communities to shop locally.  I encourage everyone to check it out because the cold hard facts are there.  To check it out simply click on the icon titled the 3/50 project to the right of my blog page.  We need money to stay in our community.  We need our local businesses to stay open, supply us with jobs and keep our history and city alive.

I anticipated this Wednesday more than others after hearing the news on Monday about our local grocery stores; I wanted to read Wednesday edition of the Citizen.  I wanted the facts and I wanted a good reason.  On Monday, August 2nd, 2010, history has once again graced us with its presence, but this is not the history I like to hear about.  Sunshine Foods and HyVee announced the news of a buy out.  A buy out that scares me to death, although I love HyVee.  The idea that scares me to death is that in mid September Windom will have yet another empty building, empty parking lot and empty potential--this will make 3 in a row along the highway.  This may also leave the hearts of both stores' employees empty.  I pray this doesn't happen.

The Citizen's first line of the article, titled "Grocers on the move," states, "For the first time in more than 100 years, Windom will have just one grocery store."  Folks, do you realize the effect this will have on our city unless we do something about it?  We will have only one grocery store.  There is no more competition of prices and no more competition to keep business. We will lose job opportunities.  And let's face it, our business turnaround isn't so hot.  We need to make a change in this city to encourage more businesses to open and stay and create local revenue.

The reasons for the buy out seemed to be laid out clear for our residents in this article, but to me things seem a little confusing.  Sunshine states they are moving on to focus on another market, one of a rural area.  Aren't we a rural area?  I think for the first time, I'm a little speechless.  I don't have a plan on how to fix this.  I have no great idea, except to try change our city into a business haven full of eager local shoppers and eager money-spending tourists. I admit I feel worthless on this one--one that I feel so passionately about.  Here I wanted to encourage you to stay local, buy local, but in this case it was not a hurting business because we were buying and surrounding city residents were buying.  A very helpless feeling for me, my empty pockets and grand ideas. 

Finding Windom under a dark cloud.