SEIBERT, Colo. — Marilyn McCaffrey has seen first-hand what a small town will do to keep its grocery store open.
In the Eastern Colorado community where she grew up, she watched as leaders rallied to keep the grocery store she manages in business. “You can do it,” she says. “But it takes a lot of time and money and effort from a lot of people.”
In the early 1990s, land at the center of town was donated for the purpose of building a much-needed new grocery store. But it took nearly ten years for the community to raise the $300,000 to build the practical, virtually maintenance free, metal structure. It’s a bright, clean, inviting store today.
McCaffrey started working at the original store across the street in 1992 and became a manager in 1995. Despite its historic flair, the old store is now one of many empty buildings that sit vacant, deteriorating. The town’s population has ebbed to less than 200 people.
But the small local grocery continues to persevere, even outlasting the Rocky Mountain News that once attracted donations from overseas by telling the story of the town’s efforts to save its store.
“The town has been quite resourceful,” McCaffrey says.
To raise funds for the building, community events and auctions were held. Decorative bricks were sold. McCaffrey and her husband have their names engraved there. McCaffrey also bought a brick in honor of her mother.
The wall gives the building character.
“It turned out to be a nice deal,” McCaffrey says.
But donations of money were only part of the equation.
“It was a big undertaking,” she says now. “There was a lot of volunteer work before we opened — painting, shelving, a lot of hard work.”
Cooperating for survival
When the Center for Rural Affairs put together a list of critical infrastructure that keep small towns vibrant, they gave grocery stores a top rating, calling them “a vital part of the fabric of a community.”
Stories of how small towns have kept their stores alive are as numerous as the small towns and the customers who still do business there. Probably everyone has a story associated with where they shop, what that place means to them, and their concerns for the future as rural populations decline and farms consolidate into larger and fewer operations.
When family businesses close or private owners pull out, many communities are forced to look at the option of banding together to start a cooperative store. Resources like Food Co-op 500 exist to provide information and advice. Food Co-op 500 (online at http://www.foodcoop500.coop) provides grants (what they call “seed” and “sprout” funds) networking and educational videos to help communities large and small all over the country get started with the process of creating a cooperative grocery store.
Residents of Walsh, Colorado, formed a cooperative when their hometown grocery store closed a little over two years ago. Community residents weren’t willing to drive a half-hour to the nearest grocery store. Organizers sold $50 memberships around town, with the hope that shared ownership would give residents an extra incentive to keep their dollars local.
The grocery co-op brought in more than $1 million in its first year of operation, according to the organizers.
Seibert’s store has gone the cooperative route too. The store was a family-owned business for decades until it became part of the Kirk Co-operative Food Store in 1984. It cost $10 to be a member and food purchases were made in bulk for stores in Kirk, Cope and Anton as well as Seibert.
At first it worked well, McCaffrey remembers. But that isn’t where the story ends. Eventually the cooperative went out of business, and the little store in Seibert continued to change operators every two years or so. McCaffrey pegs lack of grocery business knowledge as the culprit.
She can also list the challenges confronting small grocers. Even with unemployment running high, good labor is hard to find. The overhead of freezers, coolers and computers can be considerable. The electric bill is a big expense. McCaffrey says hers runs about $2,000 a month.
In 2005, the store was finally taken over by Perk O’Dell’s, a regional chain based in Akron, which was already operating in about 12 locations and growing.
“They are very pleased with the arrangement, and it’s doing very well,” McCaffrey says.
In fact, the store’s profitability increased last year.
She suspects that the cost of gasoline and the downturn in the economy may have been an incentive for more people to economize by shopping locally.
Few bells and whistles
Seibert’s grocery doesn’t have much in the way of bells and whistles. There’s no fresh meat department, for example. McCaffrey and her husband Kenny, who were once in the ranching business, personally buy their beef directly from local farmers. There’s no fresh bakery so those items are limited too.
Still, McCaffrey shrugs off the no-nonsense inventory.
“I’ve always been able to buy everything I needed here,” she says.
McCaffrey relies heavily on customer loyalty. There’s a Wal-Mart Superstore in Goodland, Kan., 60 miles away, a potential source of competition. Fifteen miles in either direction, Flagler and Stratton, neighboring towns along Interstate 70, have small grocery stores too.
Like so many rural towns, Siebert has an aging population, with residents who have a hard time traveling very far on a routine basis. “It would be a struggle for some of them,” McCaffrey says. “And they are also our very best customers.”
Another feature the Center for Rural Affairs lists as vital to a small town is having a school. McCaffrey says in Seibert, the grocery store has a mutually beneficial relationship with the local High Plains High School.
She reluctantly admits that somewhere down the road there will probably be just one school left in Kit Carson County, which also includes the larger towns of Flagler to the west and Burlington to the east.
But for now the town’s investment in its grocery store building seems to be paying off. McCaffrey sees about 800 customers come through each week.
“A lot of people in this town are very grateful,” she says.
SEIBERT, Colo. —
