Local Love: The Green Corner Store

Honesty greets you at the door and shows you around The Green Corner Store. Located in a 120 year old building in the SoMa district of Little Rock, every element, from the items on the shelves to the reclaimed antique fixtures that hold them, is consistent with owner Shelley Green's goals for her business. "It really started as an educational thing," Shelley says, "but people were asking me where they could get supplies for green living, and I realized there was a need." And so, twelve years ago, The Green Corner Store opened its doors.

The focus then, as now, was to be local supplier of (mostly) Arkansas-local goods, curated around the concept that what is good for you is good for the planet, too, and that our small choices about what we purchase and where we buy it from can collectively change the world for the better. Shelley chooses natural cleaning products, baby supplies, eco bath and body, and a great array of locally produced snacks, accessories, clothing, and home goods. When I discovered the store eight years ago, there was a Loblolly ice cream counter occupying the sunny front corner, but after they moved into their own space next door, Savoy Tea came to fill the void.

I initially wandered in for the ice cream, but I stayed for everything else. We were gluten and dairy free at the time, which is hard enough as an adult but exponentially more difficult for a toddler, so I was grateful to find vegan ice cream in kid friendly flavors, and clearly labeled skin care products that wouldn't create contact allergy breakouts. We've outgrown the allergies and the upcycled baby slippers that actually stay on, but still visit regularly for tea, local honey, and gifts.

Shelley has worked in various facets of the retail world, and one way she applies what she's learned is by making sure that her space was one where both customers and staff could relax and feel well treated. Over the past year, that's included rebuilding her website and adding a curbside pick up option (I'm particularly grateful for that last addition, since pandemic or not I don't necessarily need my entire entourage to "assist" me in popping in for a beeswax candle). "I thank my living stars every day for my loyal customers who have continued to make every effort to keep the store open," Shelley says. "That people are continuing to walk through the door - it never loses its thrill."

You can find The Green Corner Store at

1423 Main Street

Little Rock AR 72202

online

and on Facebook and Instagram

Comments

Reading and Writing

#attunedpracticetuesdays: where we share the rituals and routines that are aligned with our sense of peace and wellbeing A couple of months ago, while working on a commission project , I started a new practice. I was listening to audio books while working since the project required my eyes but not my full attention, and since it was fairly labor intensive, I took the weekends off (not something I would normally do). Lacking something to do with my hands, the first Saturday I decided to put my speedy reading to good use and read a novel in one sitting (my preferred method, anyway). Then I read another novel the next Saturday. And now it has becomes a weekly thing. The only rule is that it has to be fiction - I read enough non fiction that a novel a week isn't going to hurt anything (and it wouldn't anyway, reading is reading). Helping out with Paper Heart Books and attending a bring-your-own-book-club meeting last week helped restock my dwindling supply. I like to get hard cop...

The Margin and the Manuscript

My partner and I came from households with two contrasting money management strategies: one household who sorted cash from every paycheck into labeled envelopes and still sits down together on Sunday evenings to write everything in a ledger, and one household who had more of a "spend it when you get it so you'll have food to eat when the money runs out" philosophy. As the more financially literate partner, budgeting fell to me when we got married. I initially tried to track everything but found that to be a soul-sucking endeavor that didn't really help me accomplish my goals. I have finally landed on a simplified system where I keep a list of each pay period's major recurring expenses, check them off as they occur, and then divide the remaining balance to produce a "daily spending limit." The bills are paid and I'm not trying to figure out what line item flavored coffee syrup should fall under (groceries? eating out? personal spending?) I recently re...

Festivals and Fairs

October is the Month of Fun Outings. The weather is generally pleasant, many things are less crowded than they are in summer because school has started back, and there are also an array of local events. We try to make the most of it, since I got used to not getting sick while we stayed in for a couple years so now we ride out the germiest months at home. But before that, we frolic. We'll miss our favorite fall festival due to scheduling conflict, but there will be a small one at my eldest's dance studio, and we're all going to the state fair this year. There are street fairs and at some point soon we'll go and each choose a pumpkin to stack on the front step five deep, and my littlest will name each family member while pointing at their pumpkin every time we go in or out the door. I've started leaving windows open at night, and sometimes it's been cool enough to have them open during the day, too. My desk candle has expanded to three candles on a cheese board b...

Search This Blog