Monkitree #ThinkGardinerFirst

I think one of the things that we’re seeing now is people are doing more online shopping because it’s easy and because they don’t want to have to go to stores. So we’re seeing a couple companies making a lot of money right now and those companies are not in our community, which means they’re not serving on boards of local organizations like Gardiner Main Street. They’re not on city committees, they’re not volunteering in the community, they’re not donating to the community and so by supporting small local businesses this year you are going to keep them around and you’re going to keep them volunteering and supporting your own community.

Right now the challenge is not knowing what’s going to happen. It’s hard to plan for things. I’m unsure what my holiday season’s going to look like. Small Business Saturday is usually my biggest day and I can currently have five people in the store given the space. It is going to mean that people can’t shop as a family so I’m going to do my best to make sure I can make appointments with those people who want to shop with their children and families. For people who are concerned about their own health, they can come in when it’s only me in the store and we can keep separation if they need that. Also, I am willing to make appointments with people who are unable to wear masks because they can’t be in the store when other customers are here. I would love for people to take me up on that because I’m more than happy to do it. I encourage people to get in touch with me so they can have essentially the store to themselves.”