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How Rise Community Supermarket Has One Leg Up For Cairo, IL · OneLegUpAlex Media

0:03
Here's your most Alex Garrett. Now I have a Kroy, Illinois resident.
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Yes, Kroy, Illinois town, and maybe didn't hear of until the solar
0:15
eclipse hit that little town of Illinois. With me now is Robert Edwards of
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the Rise Community Grocery, the only grocery store in Kroy, Illinois. First
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of all, have you recovered from the big influx of taurists? Robert,
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yes, we have. Well, just give up my listeners. A background
0:39
on Kroy and why CNN came to your town last week. So, Caro
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is a small town southernmost tip of Illinois, and it used to actually be
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a fairly large city. There were a lot of things through the history of
0:55
this town that have caused it to lose population. Went from a city that
1:00
I believe it one time had around twenty thousand people in it, now it's
1:03
somewhere between fifteen hundred and two thousand people. It's a community that has had
1:11
its struggles and a community that's come together to try and rebuild and improve things.
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That's actually where the grocery store that I manage comes in. It's a
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co op cell grosy store that the community came together to put there. I
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believe that CNN primarily wanted to features because we're one of those small communities.
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There's small communities all across the country that have faced those same types of struggles,
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but this community is wanted to really come together and started working hard to
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change the direction that things were going. I also feel like they highlighted you
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guys in the way of here's a small town that can gain some hope from
1:57
this eclipse. Would you feel that was accomplished? There was some hope that
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maybe maybe people will come back. I mean, it is solar eclipse.
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How do you get those people to come back on a non solar clips day?
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If you will? So, I'll be honest with you, you know,
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I think I wasn't the only one. There was some skepticism about whether
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or not people would come to Cairo for that eclipse. At first, I
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think most of the residents thought people would go to one of the bigger towns
2:27
around as it was going to be doing events and things like that. I
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really didn't do a lot of preparation until about two weeks prior when I started
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seeing people talking on social media that they were coming to this area and Cairo
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specifically. So we didn't do as much as we could have to help bring
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people back. Unfortunately, but once people realized that it was going to be
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a big event, I think the community tried to do some things to show
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to that people from out of town, tourists, the visitors exactly what they
3:01
could visit here. Hero itself has a lot of history to it. It's
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a beautiful town. I've only lived here a couple of years myself, but
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I remember when my wife and I first came to Cairo, we fell in
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love with the town right away, just in the history of it that you
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can see when you drive around it without even learning the history. But I
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know that there were a great deal of people down at the point where the
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Ohio River, the confluence of Ohio and the Mississippi River they run into.
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The Ohio runs into the Mississippi right there, and you know, I know
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that people got to see the beauty of this town. There's a good opportunity
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for people to come back and enjoy that, enjoy the history that's around here.
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And in years past, they haven't really had a lot of options as
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far as what they can do here in town. There's been some remodeling that's
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happened at the hotel here recently, so the hotel's actually pretty nice. It's
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only one hotel here in town. We've got a grocery store now. There's
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a few restaurants that have opened up as well, So people are seeing that
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there's actually something to come to kirou work that they can enjoy it while they
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enjoy some of the beauty that's around us. Are any corporations invested in your
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town, like a Starbucks or I'm looking around, I'm McDonald's. Are you
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hoping that comes around too? Well, there's no major chain restaurants or anything
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like that. If you want to get to McDonald's, which is going to
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be the closest fast food type major fast food place to us, the closest
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McDonald's is probably about a thirty minute drive away, maybe a little lesson at
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even the closest Walmart's about a forty to forty five minute drive. Kroger same
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way. Any of those type of big things like that are a good drive
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away. If you come here and you're you're staying in the local hotel or
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one of Airbnb's, you're gonna probably eat at one local restaurants cooking local foods.
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But it's a lot better than which you'll find at McDonald's anyhow, And
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probably gonna be a weird question. But was there ever, because you know
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the Field of Dreams game has been happened a couple of times. Are you
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guys close to that part of Iowa to maybe you get tourism through that where
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they're traveling to and from ers that a little farther away from you guys.
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You said it's in Iowa. Yeah, the one in the Field of Dreams?
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Is that close? Because I know that you know I was a border
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stated is that anywhere near you guys are not at all? Right, So
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we're at we actually are in that southernmost tip Illinois. Uh So the two
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rivers come together at the confluence of the Ohio and the Mississippi, and on
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one side of US is Kentucky, the other side of US is Missouri.
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Iowa was a good distance up north in the state to get there, Robert,
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I mainly want to bring on also now just talk about the solar eclipse
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and how dark it got. Did it get dark at all? I mean,
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how much did it cover the sun where you were? It did cover
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the some where we were, it wasn't dark as pitch Black Knight, but
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it was dark enough that you could see some of the stars in the sky.
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So for those weren't in this podcast, Robert and you are the manager
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of the only Zupermarket. What can people do to support your town? Well,
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one of the things people can definitely do to help support our town is
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support the grocery store. The grocery store that I manage as a community owned
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grocery store, and we've got members. The members of our grocery store are
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the owners of our store. Right now, we've got about four hundred and
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seventy members and we have members all across the country. Some of them are
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in California, New York, Tennessee, all across the country. Those are
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people that have bought in on the grocery store because they wanted to see this
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community have that. Prior to us opening up. We opened up in June
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of last year. Prior to us opening up, there was nothing. There
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was a Dollar General that was it, and the people in this community either
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had to make a long drive. There's a lot of people that couldn't drive,
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so they had to pay someone to give them a ride, or they
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had to eat the food the Dollar General provided for me was not one it
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had like fresh produce or anything like that. Now that we're here and we've
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got the grocery store opened up, that that has been a huge impact on
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the community when people can get fresh food locally. The other thing is,
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you know when you get on those road trips. You know, we do
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set right off an interstate exit, but there's a lot of people that come
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through town that are doing different trips along the rivers or through some part parts
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of Southern and Oise have some really beautiful parks, some really beautiful sites,
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everything from the Little Green Canyon, things like that. If you make those
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trips, make as a part of the stop just stop it and support one
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of the local businesses. Maybe instead of stopping it the McDonald's on the interstate
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several miles away, trying to stop it within little local restaurants because you're gonna
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find it. You're gonna find friendly people, really good food. Uh every
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restaurant here in town is really good, and uh, you're gonna help support
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a town that's that's trying their best to grow from uh where they were.
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So with the co op, it's publicly it's like it's basically that, but
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when it comes to the history of your town. I know you said that
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is a reason maybe why people left. Is there a thing you want to
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say on this podcast? You know what, don't want our history to find
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who we are today and even say, you know, come on back,
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so to speak. Things that I was told was you know, you're gonna
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get robbed there, You're gonna get you know, shot there, things like
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that because the town had this reputation. I guess same thing when we went
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to open up the grocery store, there were people that were naysayers saying the
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same sort of thing, like you're gonna get robbed so much, you won't
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be able to stay in business. You're gonna get held up every other week.
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Things like that were we're common for us to hear. My wife and
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I didn't listen to that stuff when we moved here. I didn't listen to
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it when I when I worked hard on the store opened up along with the
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board of directors in the US community, and I can tell you that that
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stuff that's said there, and I see it on social media as well,
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it's just simply not true. And the people that actually give this town a
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chance, that they come down here and they get to know some of the
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people. The commune around here is great. The people are great. I've
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never felt unsafe a single time here in this community, be it at the
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store or at home, or when I'm out walking around the streets. It's
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not what some people try to make it out to be. Talking with Robert
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Edwards of the Rise Community Supermarket, he's in kro I'm in New York City
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and you just mentioned on moving in. Tell us about your story. How
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did you end up in kro as the manager of the Rise Supermarket. So,
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now that's a little bit of an interesting story that I don't know.
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I don't know if you're one of those people that believes in things that are
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meant to be or not always Yes, sir, I'm not one hundred percent
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sure if I believe in that myself. But I have a hard time looking
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at the way that this came to be and not thinking it wasn't meant to
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be. Because my wife and I we had been talking about moving for a
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little bit. I was working a job. I had actually gotten out of
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retail for a few years. I didn't want to do retail work anymore,
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and I was working a job at a power plant completely out of retail.
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I had done retail management for many years and I was just wanting something new.
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And I found out I was going to have to have surgery on my
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knees, so I wasn't gonna be able to go back to that job when
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I had that surgery. It just wasn't something I was going to be able
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to do. And my wife and I decided that we were going to take
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that opportunity when I was going to be off work post surgery to move.
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We wanted to relocate a different place in the country. We actually wanted to
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move to the southwest, is where we were originally looking at. We were
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looking at like New Mexico, Arizona. Some of those areas we never looked
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at anywhere in the entire state of Illinois at the time. But as luck
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would have it, we came out to look at a house one night and
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not here in Carroll in the areas that we've been looking at, and it
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wasn't as it was described, but it was a long drive to get home,
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and so we stayed at a hotel in Illinois, and for whatever reason,
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I was on the realtor app just lancing at houses around us, and
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the house we ended up buying here in Cairo. We'd never even been,
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we'd never stepped foot in the town before. But the house that we ended
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up buying here in Kiro popped up on the app and I saw it and
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like, man, that's really beautiful house, and something's got to be wrong
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with it. Look at the price on it. You know. We just
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start talking about it. So we contacted the realtor that was listening and made
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an appointment the meter the next morning from the hotel room. Next morning,
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we drove out here and looked at the house and just fell in love with
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We got here an hour early, so we drove around town before the realtor
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got here. I fell in love with the town right away, Like,
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this town is just beautiful. Some people, if you get on YouTube,
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you'll see some videos and stuff where they show some destroyed buildings. All it's
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one of those things of perception again. You know that you can show anything.
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There might be a brand new house, well it's not brand new,
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but a really nice house across the street. But they're going to show what
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they want the story to tell. But when you're actually here and you drive
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through the roads and stuff, and you see the beauty that's in this town
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and stuff. It was one of those things that we just fell in love
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with the town right away. And then we got to see the house that
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we end up getting, and we really fell in love with it, and
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so we made an offer on the house and just moved to Carroll on a
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whim. I didn't even have a job, didn't, you know. I
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told my wife, I said, I've got a good enough resume, I'll
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find a job without too much problem. Well, the mayor hero had been
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setting on the board that was organizing for the grocery store, and he is
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also the meter reader for the electrical company. And when we moved here,
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our yard is gated in and there we had changed the locks on the gates.
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So to read the meter, he's got to get through the gate.
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He had to knock on my door to get a key to the gate or
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have me unlocked it. Person. I gave the lecture company key so he
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wouldn't have to do that anymore. But I was just talking to the mayor,
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and in the course of the conversation, you know, he asked us
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how we got here and stuff, and I told him what I used to
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do, you know, I think I said something to the fact of,
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yeah, I'm not too worried about it. I'll find the job. I've
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got years of grocery management experience. Uh. And he just looked at me
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with his eyes real big. That's what they were looking for, was it
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somebody with grocery management experience to manage grocer store that they were just talking about
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opening up that time. So you know, it was like the perfect timing.
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I actually finished my physical therapy on my leg the week before I got
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hired to start working for the grocery store. Uh. It just all just
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fell in like it was just meant to be that I was gonna ask,
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but no, God is good, And I got to tell you this is
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almost instinctual too, and godly as well, because I see on your website
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risecomunitymarket dot com you have a special presentation at two pm I believe Central on
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April twenty eight, teleg what's going on? If those are in actually Cairo
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listening, what's going on twenty eight So we're really fortunate, fortunate that we're
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getting this presentation. You know, it's not something that we would normally be
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able to have, but an author who's also an expert on food co ops,
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he said, on the board of some co ops or of a co
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op, a major co op in Canada. He's visited a lot of co
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ops throughout the States and in Canada, and he's been instrumental in helping build
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apps and stuff like that for different co ops. He's a big ambassador of
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you know, community owned stores like ours, so much so that he's the
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guy that literally wrote the book on it. Right, he is going to
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be here in town. He's going to do a presentation for us for the
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community, you know who owns your grocery stores, especially what it's going to
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be around. It's going to be, you know, an inspirational message to
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help people realize just how much the store means. And well I mentioned that
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we have a lot of people that it impacts that already realize that education is
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always key for us and letting people know. Yeah, usually you walk into
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a store and you see a manager and you think, you know, either
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he's the owner, he's a manager. He's making money off of you.
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I get paid a salary that's that's determined by the board and at the store
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does a million dollars in sales this year, two million dollars or ten million
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dollars. My salary stays the same. It doesn't impact me one way or
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the other on that other than the pride of a job well done. But
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it impacts is community. The profits go back to the people that own the
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store, the members, based upon how much they shop there. So the
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money just comes back to the community. It doesn't go out to some corporate
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pockets or mutual funds or anything like that. The money stays right here with
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the people that are spending it at the source of sheeds. And that's that's
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gonna be a little bit about what he talks about. We're playing on trying
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to get as many people as we can to show up for that meeting out
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of the community, and there's a couple other co ops or whether there's at
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least one I know of that is one group that's trying to start a co
17:33
op nearby that may be here in attendance as well to hear what he has
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to say, so that they can help with spreading that messaging out in their
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communities and help to inspire people, because that's basically what that meeting is about,
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is about inspiring people in the community to continue to work together for something
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that's you know, binds us all food everybody has to eat, and so
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that's one common interest that everybody can find no matter where you live. And
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so it's about inspiring people to keep not just to act, but to keep
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acting on that afterwards, Well, that's going to be a very cool event.
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Now, as far as last week with the solar eclipse, were things
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flying off the shelves? When I watched that C and M piece with Anderson
18:22
Cooper, I got the idea you guys were thinking everything was going to fly
18:26
off the shelves. Did that happen for you guys at the rise of Room
18:30
Market during the influx of tourism during the solar eclipse, So most of the
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people were coming in. We're buying quick snack type items for the road,
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chips, soft drinks, bottled water, things like that. So we did
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run out of a couple of those things, but we were pretty well stocked.
18:48
We were able to get that stuff stocked up well. Not that the
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things that we ran out of weren't detrimental to business. You know, if
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you go in here and you're out a diet cooking cook zero instead, you
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know that sort of thing. We had a lot of people that were stopping
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in. They want to use the restaurant, they pick up a bag of
19:07
chips or so to to go with them too. The big thing that really
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increased for us was the sub shop people coming in and buying a sandwich.
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Because there's not a lot around to stop and get something to eat, and
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the restaurants around town are mostly set down type restaurants. We were the one
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place that they could find anywhere nearby where they could just go in and grab
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something and take it on the road with them. So those picked up significantly,
19:34
but not enough that we ran out of anything. With Robert Edwards of
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the Rise Community Supermarket, Robert, are you playing multiple roles right now at
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the supermarket or are you fully staffed? In a town of two thousand people?
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So there's a full staff of employees at the store, there's seven employees
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in total. We're not a huge store that can support, you know,
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a huge staff, So I do have to get out there and physically work.
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But that's part of, you know, what makes it great. You
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know, in a small store like this, it's not just me too.
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I've got community members that they come in here and they see something out of
20:15
place to move the right place and stuff really the whole community. And it's
20:18
a community ow grocery store, so that makes sense. Really the whole community
20:22
kind of pitches in in ways to try and help make it stay success.
20:27
Now, it was mentioned that there were places charging a lot during their solar
20:33
eclipse moment at Caro, Illinois. I want to look at the bigger picture
20:37
with you. Robert, has inflation hit that supermarket in Caro as much as
20:42
US has, say a city, a New York City supermarket. Oh yeah,
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absolutely. Inflation is harmful in a few ways to us. The first
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way is, you know, it drives our cost up, which makes it
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harder to operate period. And you don't want to pass along anymore of that
21:00
a consumer than you have to, because consumers are price conscious and co op
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operates off with seven basic principles, and one of those primary principles is concerned
21:08
for community. So we want to try and do right by the community itself.
21:15
So we want to try and keep our prices as low as possible.
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Unfortunately, as inflation rises, that becomes more difficult to do. When we
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opened in June of last year, chicken wings are a good example. I
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was selling cases of chicken wings to customers for sixty five dollars a case back
21:32
in June. Today, it cost me well over one hundred dollars to buy
21:37
a case of chicken wings at my cost. So the cost is more than
21:42
double in less than a year's time on chicken wings. And there's other factors
21:47
other than just inflationary issues that have caused that on chicken wings specifically, but
21:52
there's a multitude of items like that. And part of the way that hurts
21:55
too is when you're in a small community like this, it hurts your perception.
22:00
Price perception is key. If you go into any major retailer, they
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all try and give you the perception of the cheapest price possible, even if
22:11
you look like the mega corporations like Walmart. The price perception is what they
22:15
go on. So they do things called lost leaders, like milk is almost
22:18
always sold at a loss. That's one of the best examples. They really
22:22
make money on milk or around thanks given time. They put those turkeys down
22:26
real, real cheap and take a loss on them. Because when you're doing
22:30
your Thanksgiving shopping, if you're able to buy your turkey really cheap, you
22:33
get that perception that things are cheap throughout the whole store. The problem is,
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as inflation rises rapidly, if you've got someone that doesn't go out of
22:44
town a whole lot because it's a long ways away like it is for our
22:48
community, they don't see those prices rising at the other stores. They just
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know what it was last time they went to one of those big stores,
22:53
and when they come into your store here in the community, it gives them
22:57
a perception of a high price. And what sometimes really is I've gone out
23:03
and done price checks at other competitors. They're not really competitors or so far
23:07
away, but at other grocers, and you know, oftentimes my price is
23:14
cheaper than what their price is. But the consumer comes in here and the
23:19
last time they went it was cheaper at say Walmart, and then they come
23:23
in your store. They don't recognize sometimes that that Walmart price isn't the same
23:29
anymore. They had a price like too, and it just gives that perception
23:33
that there's a It hurts the price perception of a business in a small community
23:38
like this, especially bad. You know, inflation is political. So let's
23:44
stay with politics, specifically Illinois politics, and tell us if the government of
23:49
Illinois, the state government of Illinois is supporting a small town supermarket like Caro.
23:55
I mean, I feel like sometimes there are governments that turn their back
23:59
on small businesses. What is the government of Illinois and then the state government
24:03
of Illinois done for you to ensure its success at Rise Community Supermarket, There's
24:11
been several lawmakers that have helped the store apply for some grants or to get
24:18
approved for some grants. That's how our walk includers finally getting replaced is through
24:22
a USCA grant. The governor himself has worked hard on a bill that in
24:30
Illinois area, maybe not where you're at, but in Illinois it's been it's
24:34
been in the news a lot to help small grocery stores like ours out.
24:40
So there's been a lot of support. The Lieutenant Governor actually was here for
24:45
our grand opening and was a strong supporter that actually helped start the store in
24:52
the very beginning. And it's not just Democrats or the Republicans, because there's
24:57
people from both sides of the aisle that that have been involved in this project
25:02
and in this community in so many ways, from not just the grocery store,
25:06
but to the housing and to the trying to create jobs and stuff.
25:10
I feel like we're actually really fortunate that we get as much attention as we
25:15
do from the politicians here in a positive way. All right, well,
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let's really get to know Robert Edwards of the Rise Community Supermarket by just knowing
25:23
his food preferences. And Robert, what kind of stuff you mentioned you have
25:27
a subshop there? Do you like to have on your lunch break at the
25:33
subshop? If it's me, I'm usually buying one of the subs over in
25:37
the subshop if I'm eating near at the store. And my all time favorite
25:41
thing there, there's two of them. That's going to be We got these
25:45
jalapenos in a jar that are bread and butter halopenos, and I shouldn't eat
25:48
them because I have bad acid reflux, but I just can't say off those
25:52
things because they got that sweet hot jalapeno that's just really really good. The
26:00
second thing is probably gonna be the Hannibal Blacks Barbecue Sauce. There's a little
26:04
restaurant here in town named Hannibal Blacks. The couple that own it and run
26:11
it, they're really great people, and yeah, they sell some of their
26:18
barbecue sauce in the store, and it's the best barbecue sauce I think I've
26:21
ever had, So sometimes I will put that straight on a suburb. If
26:26
I'm at home, if I'm cooking chicken or something, I'm making some sort
26:27
of barbecue, I always make sure I have that around because I love that
26:32
stuff. Tell us about the event itself. When Rise Supermarket opened for the
26:38
community of krom Well, it was an event. You know. I poured
26:45
my heart and soul into getting the store open, so it was emotional for
26:48
me for that reason. But there were a great deal people. There are
26:53
a lot of press there and all people from right hearing greeting people from all
27:00
over the state that were present for that because everyone had worked on it for
27:03
so long and put a lot of effort in making sure that it became a
27:08
reality. But when it came to the actual community members, like my board
27:12
members, all seven of them are members community, and I saw Tyr and
27:18
Eye more than one of them when the store opened, and even before the
27:21
store opened, when we got our first delivery of groceries and we were stocking
27:23
shelves and they saw that stuff come in and they saw the reality. It
27:27
was one of the things that was very impactful, and it's part of the
27:30
reason why I love doing a job I do because not just then, but
27:36
to this day, there's times that you can see the impact that it makes
27:41
on people in the community in such a positive way that it wasn't just on
27:47
Grain opening Day. It was prior to Grain opening days. We made leaps
27:51
forward. It was on Green Opening Day in a major way, and since
27:56
Grain Opening Day, when third people come to me and talk about how much
28:02
of an impact it has, you can still see that there are people in
28:06
this community that are really proud of their store, and they're really proud of
28:10
what their community has done. There are people in the community that don't have
28:15
a vehicle, that don't have a way to get out of town unless they
28:21
ask for a ride or they pay for a ride. That's often the way
28:22
that they would do it. Some of them can't really afford that there's people
28:27
in the community. We actually just last month got approved for accepting WICK,
28:33
which is the women, Infants and Children program that allows them to get baby
28:37
formula and fresh fruits and vegetables and other healthy foods. That wasn't something that
28:42
people in the community could get real easily without traveling a distance. So if
28:48
you were a mother, and you needed that baby formula, and you didn't
28:53
have a car. If you couldn't find someone to take you, you just
28:57
I don't know how those people actually got that suck. And to this day,
29:03
you still see people come in grateful for the fact that the community has
29:06
put this store here, and you see the impact that it's had on the
29:10
community, and you see the pride the community has around what they did.
29:15
Uh. It's it's a thing that can be quite emotional sometimes for some people.
29:22
It really is something that brings the community together in a really profound way.
29:30
I don't think I can let you go without asking the employment situation.
29:33
When you employ someone at Rise Community Market, do you see a change in
29:37
their life? I mean, is it's sort of like, Wow, this
29:40
job's really they need this job and it's changed them. Well, yeah,
29:45
I mean anytime you employ somebody. I've been in, you know, the
29:49
grocery business for a long time, running stores for a long time. But
29:53
it's not just a the rice from market, but one of the key features
29:57
there too, you know, because our concern is for community, the people
30:03
that we employ are part of that community. I've always believed in a servant
30:10
leadership form of servant leadership form leadership. So I've always tried to treat employees
30:18
and staff with a great deal of respect and dignity and ensure that you know,
30:22
they are part of a team and not just being bossed around. But
30:27
here it goes to a whole different level because most of my employees are members
30:33
of the store. They own the store too. Most of my employees have
30:37
a belief in what that store brings to the community. They show up to
30:42
meetings, they you know, are active in the store beyond what your employee
30:51
of a normal store would. So it is not just life changing form in
30:56
a way of they've got a job and an income, but it's life changing
31:00
form in a way that it provides them an opportunity to get food. I've
31:03
got one employee who doesn't have a vehicle and has several children, and you
31:08
know, would have to pay someone to give her a ride out of town
31:11
to buy groceries if we weren't there. And she loves the fact that she's
31:17
got a store right down the road that she can go to without having to
31:19
worry about, you know, paying someone to get access to food for her
31:25
and her children. Speaking of delivery, is this such a local supermarket that
31:30
those in Caro are not looking to an Amazon for delivery. I why are
31:34
you competing with big corporations like Amazon. So, you know, the interesting
31:41
thing about the co op business model is that in our by laws we're not
31:47
a while we are considered for private corporation legally because we have to. There's
31:52
just the way the laws are there and stuff with things our by laws are
31:56
written at. Our goal isn't profit, you know, most co operations exist
32:00
to make a profit or proper for the shareholders things like that. That's not
32:04
our goal really, So when we operate, we don't look as much at
32:09
competition. I mean, competition does play a role to some degree. It
32:14
still has to in what we carry and what we do, but we don't
32:21
really look at the competition as the reason behind what we do things. What
32:24
we're looking at is what benefit it brings to the community. And we're more
32:30
concerned about just maintaining our stick, being sustainable for the community and helping the
32:35
community more than anything else. Not driving the Dollar General out of business.
32:40
That's not something we ever wanted to do. And even when we stock the
32:44
store initially, we were careful to try not to compete with them too much,
32:49
not because we were afraid to compete with them, but because we didn't
32:52
want to close another business down or harm another businesses sales. We wanted to
32:57
help the community, and that's what our goal has been from the beginning.
33:00
You know, when I think of Illinois, I'm sure many thinks of Illinois,
33:02
they think of Chicago. So tell us how far away you are from
33:07
Chicago. Can people just come on down if you have to, k Roy
33:12
Illinois and explore the Rise Supermarket and support right Supermarket. I suppose if somebody
33:17
wanted to drive down here on a Sunday from Chicago, they could. I've
33:22
made trips up to Chicago a couple of times, but it's a long drive.
33:27
It's clear across the states, it's about a seven or eight hour drive,
33:31
depending on where in Chicago you're coming from. We are the southernmost tip
33:36
of the state. We're closer to Tennessee than we are Chicago. You know,
33:44
if there's people in the southern part of Illinois, then they would make
33:49
that trip a little bit easier. Even the central part. Up in Chicago,
33:52
they might want to get a room for coming down that far. But
33:55
anybody in the state of Illinois or even the areas around us. Again,
34:00
we've got we're kind of surrounded here. We've got Missouri, and we've got
34:05
Kentucky, and we've got Indiana nearby too. All right here, if there's
34:10
anybody that's interested in in learning more about, you know, having a community
34:17
owned store, or how they can start a community owned store, or what
34:23
they can do to help end a food desert that might be in their community,
34:28
I encourage them to. They can't show up on the twenty eighth,
34:31
You've already mentioned a website Riscommunity market dot com. If they can't show up
34:36
on the twenty eighth, they can reach out to me. They just use
34:38
the contact as form on the website. They can reach out to me directly.
34:43
And you know, we share our resources as much as we you know,
34:47
we don't have a whole lot of resources, but the biggest resource we've
34:51
got is knowledge, and we've learned a lot in the last year. Even
34:57
we're happy to share those resources with others. I've had other groups come down
35:01
and even toward the store to try and learn some stuff that they can do
35:05
to try and take it back to their communities. So anything that we can
35:07
offer out there that helps others to do the same and help their communities.
35:12
It's not just about Caro, it's about you know, helping people. So
35:16
we're happy to be part of that if anyone needs that, you know,
35:20
Robert Edwards, My theme of this podcast is an accessibility, adaptability and accountability.
35:25
So how accessible is Rise Supermarket to the disabled community of Caro? Is
35:31
there a big disabled community in Cairo, Illinois. So there are a few
35:37
people that have some physical challenges that we do anything we can to support their
35:45
needs. And it's not just us as a store, not just us in
35:51
the employees, but there's some people around town I know that have brought some
35:54
people out that can't drive physically. The city itself was able to provide funding
36:00
to put new When we originally opened up, we had doors that were heavy
36:06
glass doors that were at one time old automatic doors, but the sensors and
36:12
all had long been removed, and the city actually funded putting new sliding glass
36:15
stores in the front of the building to make it more accessible. That came
36:21
out of city's hip funding. There's been a lot of support to try and
36:24
help with that stuff. There's still more that we want to do right now,
36:28
we don't have handicapped carts. We haven't be able to source those yet.
36:31
That's something we want to be able to get into the future. We're
36:35
also working on trying to get Instacart into the store. We're just dealing with
36:42
some of the funding issues around that right now. Because instacart will be huge
36:46
for the people that can't get out of their home. They can order online
36:51
and have it delivered to them or sometimes just have someone stop by the store
36:54
and pick it up, because we may end up initially doing an order online
36:59
pickup in store, but we're constantly looking at ways to help those individuals.
37:05
Yes, Robert, for those listening in New York City or other big cities
37:09
around the country and they want that small town feel in a city of eight
37:15
million people, right, how do they achieve that? What can they learn
37:17
from kro to help their communities come together in such a big city like New
37:23
York. Well, so again, I've only lived in this particular community for
37:30
a couple of years, but I've moved around a lot through my career into
37:34
a lot of different cities, from Indianapolis to Louis Cincinnati some of those areas,
37:39
and I've lived in the big cities not as big as New York obviously,
37:43
but Cincinnati is probably the biggest in Indianapolis area. And I've lived in
37:49
the more rural communities, even some community smaller than this, and really it's
37:53
just about getting out there and caring. That's what it comes down to.
38:00
There's always going to be more than one person that cares. And I mentioned
38:04
the principles of the co ops earlier. We have seven principles that we operate
38:08
off of, and those are easy to find online. I can't name them
38:12
all off my head, but another one of those principles is helping other co
38:16
ops. And so I've had other co ops or other groups of people that
38:22
are interested in starting co ops that are often in big townscuse food deserts,
38:25
aren't you know, just in small communities like this. There are big cities.
38:32
I think East St. Louis or Saint Louis. There was an area
38:37
up there that's that's trying to get a grocery short started. I'm aware of
38:44
some Marri's and Indie, Napolis and Louiswelle that are considered food deserts. I
38:49
can't think any off top of my head in Cincinnati, but I'm sure even
38:51
here in the New York area, there's areas that would be considered food deserts,
38:55
and in any of those communities, all they have to do is talk
39:00
to each other. That's really what it comes down to is is just talking
39:04
to each other and then working toward a common goal. The community around here
39:07
a lot of people know each other and stuff beats is so small. But
39:10
even in a bigger community like that, it's not hard to go out and
39:15
talk to people and find people with a common goal. And once you have
39:17
that common goal and a group of people, it's easier as a group of
39:22
people to make positive change. Robert has been so eye opening. Now there's
39:28
no way though that you you would send up one of rise AND's favorite things
39:35
to sell to New York. I'll tell you what, if you give me
39:43
a shipping address, I will personally get you a bottle of Hannibal Blacks barbecue
39:47
sauce sent in your way, just so you can try it well. If
39:52
anybody wants to check it out or even support risecommunitymarket dot com. I'm eye
39:58
open. You know, I want to tell you about the town, but
40:00
I know that you want to keep it more to the thing about one off.
40:02
There's pizzerias down there. If there's anything like what kind of faith institutions
40:07
like a church? I mean, what are the daily things that people have
40:12
that we may not know about. There are some beautiful old buildings around here,
40:15
especially some of the churches around here. I mean, there's some really
40:19
beautiful buildings around here, and like the post office here and stuff. It's
40:24
definitely worth the trip just to see some of the buildings in the history behind
40:29
them and all. There's not a pizzeria. There is a barbecue place called
40:34
m Wells that gets a lot of attention. I've been there a couple times.
40:37
They have really good food. People that are from this area that have
40:43
moved out travel here still to go there. There's a little sports barty Gill.
40:50
They're not open every day of the week, but it's called Hannibal Blacks.
40:52
They're open a Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday for lunch, and they're
40:55
open in the evening on Friday and Saturday, and they've got some of the
41:01
best food ever. I love them to death. That's where you'll find me
41:05
at putting on too much weight sometimes. Of course. Now the grocery store
41:10
itself did pieces. When we first opened up. We had to back off
41:15
of that, but there are plans and the works to have fresh pieces there
41:19
at the store. There's little personal pieces so you can come in and get
41:23
them made to order. Basically that should be happening here in the next few
41:30
months hopefully as well. You know, from a city perspective talking to someone
41:35
in the small town, I've always felt I have a small town kind of
41:38
heart, so I always want to I'm always keep my eye. So thanks
41:43
for coming on tonight, Robert. Well, thank you for having me.
41:45
And if you ever find yourself on a trip and you get the chance through
41:50
out your way through here, let me know and I'll get you lunch.
41:53
Oh we will. We will hold you to that. And if you make
41:55
your way to the big city in New York, let me know. I'll
41:59
definitely I love to meet you, all right, but I want to take
42:04
a trip now. I'm very curious, and you know, my mom's in
42:06
the museum, so she wouldn't want me to not ask this question. Do
42:08
you have any museums of the history of Tiro, Illinois. So I'm going
42:16
to tell you, I'm ashamed to admit this. I do know that there
42:19
are some museums here, some historic there's historical Society and some museums here.
42:24
But and I really am ashamed to admit this because I'm a guy that loves
42:29
history. I'm a history of buff Normally that's where I would be. But
42:32
you know, between the knee surgery and doing physical therapy and stuff and then
42:36
opening a grosy store, I haven't sipped foot in them yet. And that's
42:39
a sad thing to say. Well, you and I will take a tour
42:44
whenever I get there. You and I are going to take a tour,
42:45
all right? Yeah? Absolutely? And I feel like, is there an
42:50
airport? How do we get to kro if we want to visit? So
42:52
there is an airport here in Carroll, but it's not a major airport.
42:58
I don't think you'd want to fly into that. That, uh, you'd
43:00
probably fly into I'm guessing Saint Louis if you were coming down to visit here,
43:06
because we're only about two hours away from Saint Louis or Memphis, depending
43:09
on which was a cheaper place to fly to you for you, Saint Louis,
43:13
Memphis, and uh said Nashville are all about two hours away. I
43:16
know that the Uh. I've had a few people basically catch a Cardinal game,
43:21
go to k Roll, then go up to see the Cubs. I
43:22
got it. There's my schedule right, exactly exactly. All right, Well,
43:28
I'll think about this. You know, I bring my fiance sometimes,
43:30
so hopefully we can make a trip out of this, and I'd love to
43:32
meet you in person. It seem like a really good guy, and I
43:37
haven't said thep of congratulations on this launch of Rise. It sounds like you're
43:42
really proud of this work that you've done and continue to do. Yeah.
43:46
I'm very proud of the work that I don't like to take credit for it
43:50
because I have not done any of this by myself. I've put a lot
43:52
of blood, sweat and tears into it. But community is really the one
43:55
that is owed to congratulations and the ones that have really done the work to
44:00
make this possible. I wouldn't may able to do any of this without the
44:02
community coming together. Uh So, yeah, I'm proud of it, but
44:07
I'm I'm more proud of the community here and and what I've been welcomed into.
44:13
Well, I'm you caught me in New York. Now I'm rolling in
44:15
Long Island. See. Zooman technology is something else I will. I'm gonna
44:20
roll on home in my little small town of Port Washed. I actually moved
44:23
out of here from the Queens from my fiance, so that smalltown field is
44:28
very vibrant in Long Island. If you could believe that, I can believe
44:31
that, and uh, I would love to stay in touch and let's let's
44:36
maybe make a plan for the summer. Would love that sounds great? Thank
44:39
you? All right? That was Robert Edwards, Rice Community market leader,
44:45
you know, manager and whatnot. Thanks for joining and talking about the solar
44:46
coups and so much more.