Washburn, IL

Washburn Community Foods: A Hometown-Owned Grocery

When the only grocery store in Washburn, Ill., (pop. 1,100) was fated to close last year, townspeople banded together and bought the business, saving themselves a 20-mile round trip to the nearest store for a gallon of milk or loaf of bread.

“Before, if you had to make a cake, you couldn’t depend on getting what you needed. Now I can,” says shopper Jean Quiram, explaining how the store has expanded its product selection.

Tim Schoon, president of Alpha Community Bank, organized a committee to find ways to keep the store open, and the group came up with the idea of selling stock to buy the store outright. Nearly 100 people turned out at a meeting in support of the proposal.

“We felt like the community buying the store made a whole lot of sense,” says Dave Canaday, president of the Washburn Grocery Association, which bought the store. “Everybody who invested in the store would have a vested interest in shopping there.”

Association members went door-to-door within a 15-mile radius of Washburn, soliciting people to buy shares at $50 each. Nearly 500 investors bought shares, raising more than $100,000. The money, along with low-interest loans, was used to buy, remodel, and restock the store in the central Illinois community. The sale was final Nov. 1.

“If you close the grocery, the rest of the town is going to die,” says Canaday, a Washburn resident with 27 years experience in the grocery store supply business.

Townspeople knew all too well what it was like to have no grocery. The store had closed for several months two years ago, leaving only a pizza parlor, cafe, curio shop, insurance office, and post office in the downtown along State Road 89 and requiring residents to drive 20 miles to Metamora, Ill., to buy groceries.

“I was very disappointed when the store closed before,” says Stan Ulrich, who does all the shopping for his household. “It was a big inconvenience.”

“We hated the idea of shopping elsewhere,” echoes Jennie Quiram, who has lived in Washburn with her husband, James, for 52 years. Their daughter, Jean, a beautician, says some of the town’s older residents are unable to go out-of-town to shop.

Investors didn’t stop at raising money. Volunteers also cleaned floors and walls, replaced light fixtures, repaired equipment, painted, and rearranged the floor plan of the store.

When a tractor trailer with store goods arrived on Nov. 4, Ulrich and his wife, Willa, were among 50 volunteers who unloaded, marked, and stocked shelves. The new manager, Leeann Welsh, seven months pregnant, was thrilled to see people pitch in. “The community stocked the store in one day!” she says.

Washburn Community Foods, as the store is called, strives to offer a variety of products to satisfy customers’ needs and buys most of its stock from the same supplier as the Metamora store, keeping prices competitive.

Inside, the aroma of homemade rolls, breads, cakes, and pies, from the made-from-scratch bakery leased by Mennonites, greets shoppers as they enter the store. In addition, an expanded produce department, a fresh meat case, a deli, a selection of grocery items, and a leased video department fill the 7,500-square-foot building. The store has two checkout stands and 15 employees, including a meat cutter.

Since the store opened, townspeople have put their money where their mouths are. “We’re running 30 percent ahead of our budget on sales,” Canaday says. “We, as a community, put this together and together we’re committed to making it work.”

“People have taken ownership—that’s what has brought success,” says Barbara Shirley, an association member and store volunteer.

“A small town,” adds Jean Quiram, “needs a store to survive.”

Diana West is a freelance writer in Joplin, Mo.

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