How’s your shopping hygiene?
Do you ever get home from the store only to realize you neglected to get the one thing you actually left home to go and get?
Or are you super organized, making a single trip to the shopping centre of your choice perhaps once per month? This Christmas, for example, you will return with every pair of socks, along with the tape and gift bags to have gifts tree-ready.
Not me. I shop in the town where I work and in the other town where I live; because I will indeed find that I am home without a certain important thing such as soy sauce or ice cream. For Christmas I may need to run out for one more box of chocolates. Or a stove.
Occasionally I do shop in large centres, but really, I also shop online, and we do regularly receive guitar picks from France.
But for a stove – I’m looking on the internet but not ordering over the internet. The local hardware has stoves.
Small towns, such as Kenton and Oak River are fighting to keep their basics – the grocery stores.
While over 1500 people live in the RM of Oakview, only 125 souls live in Oak River. The town is a 15-minute drive from Hamiota, and slightly more to Kenton.
In Oak River there is a Credit Union, a hotel, two restaurants, an insurance agency, McCallum’s Services (gas, tires etc.), Mr. T’s Repair (a second-generation may continue this business), the Quick-Freeze, and of course, the Co-op food store. That proves there’s a lot going on in the surrounding community.
Kenton is small too. But amazingly, a car dealership takes centre stage; an insurance business along with a busy lumber yard serves Kenton community within the RM of Wallace-Woodworth. Red Fern farm supplies is there and a coffee shop that has been for sale for a while. One of the biggest hopes for the community is that someone will purchase the local eatery.
Looking 10 years down the road, will the amalgamation of Valleyview and Kenton Co-ops serve to keep the grocery stores in Oak River and Kenton?
General Manager of Valleyview Co-op Dave Wowk responded to that question saying, “Well, we’re trying to work together, that’s what it’s all about. This is a partnership that was formed between Valleyview and Kenton and we’re hoping to be able to grow the business enough that we can maintain those services in all the communities we serve.”
He can’t guarantee what will happen 10 years down the road. But he did say, “We’re hopeful now that we’ve made this move, that we can be here much longer than that.”
Locals are hoping to see an expanded line of merchandise available at these two small-town stores, great sales and with that, I can see the local loyalty will continue because most people just aren’t that organized. They aren’t going to import all their groceries, all the mundane ‘must haves’, from the city.
