As COVID-19 forced business doors to close and farmers' markets to buckle down with restrictions and antithetical rules, some business owners who were able to weather the pandemic decided to help out as many others as they could.
For example, when you walk into a quaint little flower boutique in a strip mall, you don't necessarily expect to walk into a bustling community marketplace.
Charmed Floral Design at the Appleyard Square complex on Akins Drive is just that. It's more of an emporium of local arts and crafts, still with all of the flowers in coolers as one would expect. Florist Mandi Lauman said she has always offered counter space to several of St. Albert's home-based artisans over the six years she has been in business. With the mandated public-health restrictions putting many small business and home business operations in jeopardy, she cleared more space on her counters and throughout her store to welcome in more artisans.
"Throughout (the pandemic), there were no markets. It's a hard selling factor if you don't have a storefront, and I fortunately was able to stay open most of the time," she said, noting how markets and fairs became unavailable or untenable, so many producers of local goods tried their hands at online stores to middling success.
"When you ask me how COVID affected the collaboration of small businesses, it affected me a lot. I love doing this. I've done it before COVID, but now there's more variety of small businesses within our business. I found with COVID, they couldn't do their farmers' markets and their fairs, and even their normal stuff. A lot went online."
A quick count of the businesses she supports now reveals a figure somewhere between 25 and 30. The count seemed to continue to rise as she walked around the store. There are painters and candle makers, sculptors, soap makers, woodworkers, jewelers, fashionistas, and more – all local and all able to sell their wares thanks to Lauman and Charmed.
She said it's also really cool that just as she promotes these others, they also promote her shop.
"We're all like a group of collaborations. It's not just me and that one company; we're all now friends. Not a clique or anything, but a support system. A small business community."
The phenomenon of collaboration has taken on a new life during the ongoing pandemic. Where you might expect to see local artists on the walls at coffee shops and bistros, every place of business has wall space, which theoretically could become gallery space.
This was exactly the thinking at the table of practitioners at the Sturgeon Women’s Health Clinic after they recently opened their office space in the new Sturgeon Medical Centre at 625 St Albert Tr. The busy obstetrics and gynecology practice has six physicians who collectively attend to up to 150 clients every day. That's a lot of people in seats, said Dr. Christina Kerr, and a lot of people waiting to be taken to the examination rooms.
With a lot of large blank walls to decorate, Kerr was inspired by those quaint bistros with local paintings. She sought out the St. Albert Painters Guild to see if there was any interest in a collaboration. Artists throughout the pandemic have faced a disheartening lack of venues to display their creations. Without much hesitation, the guild agreed.
Now, the clinic is the city's newest gallery space with fresh rotations of art every few months. The Painters Guild couldn't be more pleased, and neither could the doctors and clients at the clinic.
For Kerr, it was really a simple decision that matches her personal philosophy.
"A big part of how I like to live my life is supporting local," she explained.
"I'm from the Edmonton area myself: I did my training here. Me and my partner, we really try to buy local as much as we can. We support community-sponsored agriculture every year. My hope is that, especially in times when people aren't having opportunities to display and have shows and things like this, that hopefully this will help expose some of our local talent, and if not just exposure, hopefully get some sales as well."
That philosophy extends even further north to the new Holiday Inn Express at 1145 St. Albert Tr. Opening a new hotel during a pandemic was a daunting task, especially because of widespread travel restrictions, said sales manager Melissa Del Rosario. Still, the hotel team wanted to make an impression as a dedicated member of the community, so they contracted their breakfast and housekeeping supplies to an Alberta company, hired a local marketer to maintain their social media, cross promoted with local restaurants such as Socrates and Boardwalk Burgers, and offered more local artisans' wares in their gift shop. Team members even visit local stores to showcase them as happy neighbours through their social media.
"Slowly but surely we are being known in the area, which is really good. That's why we wanted to reach out as much as we can, and we wanted to introduce the hotel as much as we can, letting everybody know that we are open," Del Rosario said. "We really need to support each other, right? So that's why we are opening up our marketplace, opening it up for some of other businesses to sell their products."
"We're just trying to help the little guys in business, and it's all about relationships," said general manager Maria Cozarescu. "Everyone tries to support everyone here a little bit."
