by Gary Schenkel | Dec 12, 2012 | Business
Monument Square, Urbana, Ohio, aglow with the Christmas spirit.
The other day, as I completed a project for one of my freelance writing clients, Vince Guaraldi’s jazz instrumentals from A Charlie Brown Christmas played in the background on Spotify. Old familiar music like that takes me back – say, to the night that Charlie Brown first bemoaned the commercialization of Christmas on national TV, and I was 8 years old.
Another vision from my Christmases past is the enchanting, mechanized window displays of the Wolf & Dessauer department store, a retail institution that dated back to the 1890s in downtown Fort Wayne. Those displays ranked high among local Christmas traditions – until L.S. Ayres bought W&D’s, and Christmas shopping got carted off to the malls.
The good news is that Champaign County, Ohio, offers plenty of opportunities to shop at distinctive, locally-owned stores that offer quality merchandise, personal service and the fun of exploring.
When you shop at these stores, your money stays in Champaign County to promote the local economy. And there’s no having to search for your car when it’s time to go home.
In the next several Champaign Uncorked! blog posts I will feature some of the many locally-owned businesses that offer pleasant shopping experiences at Christmas and throughout the year.
Check Out Chamber Checks
The Champaign County Chamber of Commerce also offers a solution for those of you who don’t like to shop or have someone who’s difficult to shop for: Chamber Checks.
Call the Chamber – 937-653-5764 – to find out more about Chamber Checks, which can be purchased any time of year in denominations of $10, $25 and $50, with no service charge or purchasing fee. They work like a gift certificate and can be used for purchases at more than 100 retail shops, restaurants, salons and other service providers throughout Champaign County (a list of participating businesses is provided with each Chamber Check).
Until next time, what are your favorite local shopping venues?
by Gary Schenkel | Feb 16, 2012 | Business, General
The first crocus breaking through the earth is a beautiful sight. No doubt. But what spring-time “first” truly gets me excited?
That would have to be – and I’m certain I’m not alone – the first ice cream shop to reopen for the season.
Ahhhh ... a waffle cone in full bloom!
This year, in Champaign County, Ohio, that will be Dairy Corner, at 1472 E. U.S. 36, Urbana. The doors open at 11 a.m. this Saturday, February 18! Owners Bob and Robin Turner have added specialty hot dogs to the menu … and though maybe not Saturday, but by Monday, they’ll begin serving up a new variety of ice cream. (In addition, Dairy Corner is adding catering — a make your own sundae bar.)
Next to open will be the Urbana Dairy Queen at 1047 N. Main St. on the following Saturday, February 25, and Climber Cone, at 801 Maimi St., Urbana, will open April 1.
If you know of other openings, please leave a comment.
Next up: Champaign Uncorked! will continue its recent food fixation, but will return to the subject of foods that are locally grown.
by Gary Schenkel | Feb 10, 2012 | Agriculture, Business
You know those directories on supermarket shopping carts that tell you where to find the mayonnaise? Pretty handy for the shopping impaired like me.
Now the Local Food Council of the Community Improvement Corporation of Champaign County (CIC) has gone one better. It’s come up with a directory — a brochure, actually — that’ll guide you all over Champaign County, Ohio, not just down the aisles of a grocery store, showing you where to find the freshest locally grown and made food products.
This brochure includes a county map and corresponding list of growers, vendors and farmers’ markets, with address, contact information, hours of operation and products … fruits and vegetables, eggs, fish, meats (even bison), honey, dried flowers, garlic, herbs, dog treats, maple syrup, artisan breads, preserves, handmade soaps, lavender, bedding plants, vegetable plants…. And that’s not all. Click on the image at left to see for yourself all the local food treasures that are out there to be discovered and savored.
So, from now on when it’s time to write out the shopping list, consult this brochure — not just the grocery flyers and coupons. Take full advantage of what Champaign County farmers have growing. Discover the advantages of buying and eating locally grown food that’s at the peak of freshness … better taste, improved nutrition, a stronger local economy, and more.
It’s been my pleasure to assist with this project through the CIC and Local Food Council. And many thanks to Lisa Williams of Type by Design, who designed the brochure.
Use it in good health.
Updates will be made periodically. Email corrections or additions for future editions to cic@ctcn.net.
by Gary Schenkel | Feb 8, 2012 | Agriculture, Business
Online shopping’s a breeze – like popping a prepackaged dinner in the microwave. The trouble is: Internet sales keep taking a bigger bite from local business’ plates. (Similar to how frozen dinners shortchange our health.)
However, in Champaign County, Ohio, a fresh new, locally grown approach to online shopping will soon dish out more money to our local economy.
The new virtual farmers' market will bring the convenience of online shopping to the realm of locally grown food, but there's still nothing like communing with neighbors, farmers and fresh produce at one of Champaign County's open air markets.
Offering products that may look out of place among the clothing, electronics, media and imported gewgaws typically packed into online shopping carts, the Champaign County Virtual Farmers’ Market will allow shoppers to click and pick tomatoes, other veggies, fruits, meats, and value-added food products like baked goods – all grown or made in and around Champaign County.
The virtual market is an idea germinated and cultivated by the Local Food Council of the Champaign County Community Improvement Corporation (CIC) and Activate Champaign County (ACC). And it’s being started with a Pioneering Healthy Communities grant obtained by the Champaign Family YMCA through the YMCA of the USA. (Sorry for the alphabet soup.)
Heather Tiefenthaler, a member of the CIC, Local Food Council and ACC, is preparing the virtual market for opening the first week of May (check back here for updates). She’s recruiting vendors to join the market. Vendors can register on the market’s website – www.champaignoh.locallygrown.net (click on “create an account” near the bottom of the “Our Vendors” page).
If you have questions, you may contact Heather at mctief@frontier.com. A market manager will be appointed soon.
Does this mean traditional farmers’ markets are being replaced?
Not at all!
Champaign County’s three farmers’ markets, in Urbana, Mechanicsburg and St. Paris, will reopen for the season in May.
The virtual market is simply a convenience for busy shoppers who can’t always get to the markets. It will make it possible for more people to discover and enjoy the just-picked freshness and good taste of locally grown food – food that hasn’t grown weary from hundreds of miles in a truck.
The virtual market promises great advantages, but nothing can replace the neighborly, community-building charm of a farmers’ market, where people renew acquaintances, catch up on news, meet the growers, and thump melons.
How will the virtual market work?
Beginning the week of May 6:
- Participating vendors will post their available inventory on the market website each Sunday.
- Customers who register on the site will be notified by email when the inventory is posted and they can begin shopping. They will have until 8 p.m. that Tuesday to place their orders at www.champaignoh.locallygrown.net.
- The vendors will prepare the orders and bring them on Thursday to the Champaign Family YMCA, where customers will pick them up between 4:30 and 6:30 p.m. Payment is due at time of pickup.
Next up at Champaign Uncorked!: I’ll offer you a look at a new brochure published by the CIC, Local Food Council and their partners – a guide to where you can find locally grown and made food products throughout the county. And as we lead up to the new farm market season, I’ll whet your appetite by featuring some local growers and the fruits of their labor.
And please take a moment, if you will, to share with me what your favorite locally grown or made food product is.
by Gary Schenkel | Apr 19, 2011 | Agriculture, Business
At a roadside stand or farmers’ market, you buy direct from the farmer. Middlemen are left out of the exchange, the farmer nets more from his toil, and you benefit from eating fresher food—and knowing where it came from.
Paul Kurtz and his son-in-law Hans Hochstedler display a bag of Cafe Diego, coffee they purchased directly from a farmer in Nicaragua.
You can experience similar advantages at Hemisphere Coffee Roasters (HCR) at 22 S. Main Street (State Route 29) in Mechanicsburg, Ohio. Obviously, the coffee that owners Paul and Grace Kurtz sell isn’t locally grown. Yet, in Hemisphere’s inviting, aromatic coffee shop and roastery, you’re much less removed from the people who grow and harvest the coffee than you typically are at the supermarket.
Shake hands with Paul Kurtz and you’re in the clasp of the man who shakes hands with Latin American and African coffee growers as they agree on fair, direct purchases of the many varieties that HCR sells.
Coffee with a Mission
“Coffee with a mission,” HCR’s slogan, is much less a marketing mantra than pithy creed. In 2004, HCR blossomed from Paul’s service as director of global mission for Rosedale Mennonite Missions in Irwin, Ohio.
Hans roasts coffee at Hemisphere Coffee Roasters.
In his extensive travels through Central and South America and East Africa, Paul witnessed struggling people and communities.
The economies of many of the communities had coffee in common, so Paul recognized an opportunity to offer the people a “hand up,” instead of a “hand out.” Since then he’s been shaking hands with coffee growers, offering them a direct, fair price—considerably higher than customary—to sustain their farms, their families, their employees and their communities.
“We’re now seeing new roofs on houses and cement floors that were once dirt—and growers who are better able to support their workers and their families,” Paul says.
The direct trade relationships that the Kurtzes cultivate with coffee growers also benefit HCR’s customers. Before making any purchase, Paul “cups,” or taste tests the coffee to assure its quality.
Last year HCR roasted and sold 57,000 pounds of coffee, retail and wholesale, and is continually expanding its market.
HCR coffee is available in Champaign County, Ohio, at Everyday Organics, Freshwater Farms of Ohio and Yutzy’s Cheese House in Urbana, Mad River Farm Market, near West Liberty, and Preston’s IGA in Mechanicsburg. For more retail locations, a list of churches that serve HCR coffee, and online sales, visit HCR’s website.
HCR coffee shop, retail store and roastery
22 S. Main St., Mechanicsburg
937-834-3230
www.hemispherecoffeeroasters.com
Facebook: Hemisphere Coffee Roasters
Hours: 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Monday, 9 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Tuesday-Friday, and 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Saturday.
Bible study: 10 a.m. to noon on Sunday. All are welcome!
by Gary Schenkel | Nov 13, 2010 | Business
For me, reading the Urbana Daily Citizen’s Saturday edition was a wistful experience.
The first thing that caught my attention on Page One was the color photo of the Urbana Twin Cinema’s marquee announcing the return of movies to Urbana. That’s good news: Urbana has not seen its “Last Picture Show.”
The wistfulness came when my eyes shifted right to the headline: “Urbana Daily Citizen will start 2011 in new location.”
It’s the Daily Citizen’s second metamorphosis in recent months. First, bankruptcy proceedings and a change of ownership. And now this—shedding its long-time home, 220 E. Court St. near downtown, for Suite 10 of the Scioto Square shopping center … “conveniently located near Kroger,” as the article put it.
Granted, 220 E. Court St. is no architectural work of art. It’s as “artless” as the newsroom is windowless. Completely windowless, in fact. But really, a newsroom in a strip mall?
Of course, the move makes sense. Much of the current building is unused, wasting money to heat. The press room has been closed for many years since Brown Publishing consolidated printing operations of its papers. Desktop publishing put the composing room out of business. And thanks to digital photography, the darkroom is just a dark room—windowless like the newsroom.
But the place holds a lot of nostalgia. It’s the first place I ever wrote anything in Urbana, Ohio. I can’t remember what that first article was. But I slugged it out on a hulking manual typewriter, in my first job out of college, with the incessantly clattering Associated Press wire machine at my back, at a desk that abutted the desk of Managing Editor Phil Angelo—a desk and title that I eventually moved over to.
At the risk of sounding like some old guy, there really was a lot of charm to those good ol’ newspaper days.
But, come to think of it, what’s not to like about the ease of electronic publishing. Just a click of the “Publish” icon…. Now you’re reading this!
A tip of the fedora to Daily Citizen Managing Editor Brenda Burns for granting my request for one last nostalgic look around the confines of 220 E. Court St.–and, of course, a good deep breath of the lingering scent of printer’s ink.
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