My grandmother had several drawers in her kitchen where she saved string, wooden spools and odds and ends that you could use to repair things when the need arose. Growing up in the Depression does that to you.
We now live in a throw-away society. When something breaks, or often if it just doesn’t look good anymore, it gets replaced — no chance for a repair. We are ever on the hunt for the newest, latest and greatest.
Our business just went through a major expansion. Many decisions were made about buying brand-new versus reusing something previously owned. We recycled a building instead of building a new one. Our location is about as close as possible to what I would have designed myself. It was built with green technology, and we saved a lot of time and resources by using an existing structure.
We chose to reuse fixtures from another business, but we did get new lighting fixtures in our recycled refrigerators and freezers: LED lighting, to cut down on heat and for the long life, energy- efficiency and better lighting.
When we moved into our new location last year, I knew this was our final move. One of the other main factors in choosing this building was its size, giving us room to expand into educational and community-oriented activities while maintaining our family-oriented personality. That’s because we wanted to recycle our customers too.
Our business is a family. I work alongside my parents, two of my children and a cousin. The people we serve are family, too. Some customers have been with me through all six of our moves in the past 20 years. Some people we see three times a week, others only twice a year. We share new babies and puppies. We learn about people’s health issues because that’s what we specialize in: helping people find ways to improve their lives through what they eat. We share illnesses and deaths, too, because that is part of life. Sometimes these friends move away. We feel a loss when they leave, but often they come back to visit, bringing their new families.
We have to grow to keep our business viable, but we try not to do it at the expense of our customers or our fellow businesses. We send our customers to other local businesses when we don’t have something they need, because it’s the right thing to do. Rather than just trying to make a sale, we educate people about our products so they can make their own decisions about what things are best for them.
We treat them the same way we would like to be treated as a customer. These are the things that keep our business green and sustainable and, I hope, a part of the Centre County community for years to come.
Michele Briggs is an owner of Nature’s Pantry, a natural foods store that opened in State College in 1992. She can be reached at naturespantry@gmail.com.
