||| FROM SAVE THE SHAW STORE BOARD OF DIRECTORS |||
Imagine the Shaw General Store open seven days a week, year round, managed by the Orcas Food Co-op. Imagine the store property owned by a community non-profit organization, self-supporting through the store, the marina, and other revenue sources on the property.This could soon be the reality, if a community effort to buy the store property is successful.
For over 100 years, the Shaw Store has been a hub: folks congregate, catch up, chat, check the mail, do the laundry, buy chicken feed, or buy excellent island produce and fine local brews. Now, a freshly formed non-profit – Save the Shaw Store – is raising money to purchase the property and ensure it continues on as a community benefit in perpetuity.
The organization recently negotiated a letter of agreement with the Masons (the current property owners) and with the Orcas Food Co-op. The agreement establishes the basic terms of the purchase: The Masons will sell the store buildings, warehouse, marina, and (eventually) the cabin property to the east of the store to Save the Shaw Store for a good price; the Orcas Food Co-op will lease the store facilities to continue its operations for the Shaw community; the Masons will help the Co-op get established in the store and will work with them on the ferry.
The Orcas Food Co-op’s offer to assist folks on Shaw fills in a necessary part of a puzzle: If Shaw Islanders are to keep the store and the landing operating successfully for the Shaw community, they need to know who will run the store. As a successful community-owned cooperative, Orcas Food Co-op has a proven track record, bringing expertise in management together with a deep commitment to community in the islands.
A similar project on Orcas provides an example for how this structure of community-ownership can be successful – In January 2020, Friends of the Olga Store Building, a non-profit, purchased the historic Olga Store Building to save the property from potential development and to house the Olga Post Office and a store. The store portion will be operated by the Orcas Food Co-op, and is expected to open in it’s new form this spring.
Save the Shaw Store is hoping to pull off a similar success story. The Masons do want the store to remain a store, and they do want the properties to continue as an asset benefiting the Shaw community. The Masons are generously and carefully working with Save the Shaw Store to give the community this chance to make it all work. Save the Shaw Store must gather approximately $1 million dollars in donation pledges for the downpayment on the property. There are many opportunities to get involved in this project, both by giving a financial gift to this campaign, joining the board, and by volunteering to work on this project with us through construction, outreach, and more.
Visit www.savetheshawstore.org for more info and to make a pledge and join the email list!
If interested in further details please email savetheshawstore@gmail.com or contact:
- Jennifer Swanson, Save the Shaw Store Board President, jenswanson@hotmail.com
- Anne Wysocki, STSS Board Member, annefranceswysocki@gmail.com
- Learner Limbach, Orcas Food Co-op GM, STSS Board Member, learner@orcasfood.coop
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Is the Olga Store/Coop project already fulling funded?
Janet, the Friends of the Olga Store Building are still seeking funds to help complete renovations. Per the FOSB website – donations can be deposited at Islanders Bank to: Friends of The Olga Store Building -or- mailed to: FOSB, PO Box 21, Olga WA 98279. Both are critical and essential projects for protecting what we love here in the islands!
That’s a Big Commitment, Three stores, great job. You can teach the other business how to hire and retain employees. It seems to be a ongoing challenge for the others facilities year round. And they seem very eager to retain them.
Shaw will be well served.
Clyde, thank you for the comment. Yes, hiring and retaining is really a challenge. We certainly don’t have it all figured out, but part of our mission is to provide good jobs, which we expect to be able to do more of with these additional spaces. The seasonality of the economy in the islands is very difficult both for employers and employees. We do hire seasonally, but co-op jobs are almost entirely year-round living wage jobs, and we try to have a focus on staff sell-being, which I think helps with retention. That said, yes, even we have problems with finding enough employees, largely it seems due to lack of affordable housing in the islands. We need to all keep working hard on that issue as well. Hopefully we can turn the tide on that in the near future.
By way of update,
What is the status of the Co-Op fund raising efforts to purchase a generator ?
Also, status of the Co-Op Mini store in Eastsound?
Thank you!
Hi Betty,
I am realizing that the Co-op could do a lot better with communication about all these projects, and I appreciate the questions, which actually are helping me compile information to put in our newsletter and on our website.
1) the generator project is fully funded. We have $25K in the budget to do that later this year, but have been held back for the past two years waiting on the county to complete the Prune Alley streetscape project. We can’t do it until that is done because of space constraints and the fact that the only place we can put the generator is a spot that will be impacted by the Prune Alley work.
2) The “Co-op Mini” (which may end up with a slightly different name, TBD!) is being turned into a grab n go deli and cafe with an espresso counter and expanded ready-to-eat food offerings. The Co-op has the capital we need for the Co-op Mini redesign, and there is no holdup due to finances, but only the time needed to get the space completed in the right way. We are setting it up with plenty of space for social distancing, as well as considering how it might be tweaked slightly in the future, to ensure efficient use of efforts and capital. We are presently getting plans finalized and lining up the construction work, etc. We are really excited about how it is shaping up and look forward to sharing more details soon!
Because I have received some other good questions about the Olga Store, I want to provide a little more info here –
Although the Friends of the Olga Store Building are still seeking additional donations to support ongoing improvements and stewardship of the Olga Store building and property (and this will likely be ongoing, as it is with most non-profits who own and care for community buildings), the Co-op is responsible for setting up the store space and we have previously set aside the resources we need to do that already. We are speedily working away to get the space ready, and the hold-up is not financial but purely logistical. We expect to open in March or April, as soon as possible, although there could still be setbacks.
We are blessed with having an amazing team of Co-op members, volunteers and staff helping us with these projects, with a focus on keeping the upfront costs to a minimum, while at the same time not cutting corners.
The cool thing about all these projects is we are providing and creating good paying jobs in the process, at a time when our community really needs it. We have an amazing team and because of that we are able to juggle all these projects at once.
Thanks for answering questions promptly Learner. Can I ask what a starting cashier and/or person stock shelves at the Co-op makes?
Hi Ed, sure thing! Entry level clerk positions start at $15/h, though all of our staff currently make more than that. Average hourly wage (non-management) currently is over $19/h. Some other benefits are paid vacation and personal leave accruing immediately, 20% staff discount, and paid lunch breaks.
I should add to the staff comment that we also paid all hourly employees $1/h bonus pay for the period of March 15th through October 31st, and we have also paid full sick pay for all missed days related to Covid since the start of the pandemic regardless of whether the employee had accrued time off available.