The Community General Store (TCGS) in Niverville is under new ownership. Chuck and Amy Allen hope to keep the vibe of TCGS the same while also adding a new layer to the store.
One of the more noticeable changes to the store will be the addition of Chuck’s wares. Chuck is the craftsman behind Earth and Hide, which sells handmade, high-end leather goods. He has already moved the production of Earth and Hide to the back room of TCGS and will sell its products in the store as well.
The Allens decided to buy TCGS both to complement and extend Earth and Hide. Chuck explains that his leather goods are so durable that they will last a lifetime. He feels the degree of quality is great for his customers, but of course it also means he is always looking for new people to buy his products.
“I knew I couldn’t support a storefront with just the leather goods,” says Chuck. “I needed some consumables to keep people coming back.”
TCGS was already known for its flowers and bath and body products, so the Allens will continue to sell these popular items.
Chuck explains that having a brick-and-mortar store also allows him to better serve and get to know his customers.
“Until buying the store, [I had] been operating Earth and Hide from my home and by going to popup markets across Canada,” he explains. “That creates a barrier to interacting with customers. I wanted a place where people can come whenever the doors are open and be involved with what’s going on in the shop. With Earth and Hide, my life’s work is to inspire hope through the therapeutic benefit of craftwork. The store will allow a space for that.”
The former owner of The Community General Store, Noella Andres, created a business that Chuck says he wants to honour. He explains that Andres’s vision for the store was to give it a feminine atmosphere and use it to support female-owned businesses.
“That’s also one of the reasons I wanted to make sure Amy had controlling ownership of the store,” says Chuck. “Whereas Earth and Hide is mostly my thing, I wanted something that Amy could literally take ownership in.”
The Allens moved to Canada in 2013 from the Washington D.C. are where Chuck worked as a video producer for the Department of the Navy’s Bureau of Medicine and Surgery.
Before his civilian Department of Defence job, Chuck was a combat cameraman in the U.S. Marines for four years. Amy has been working from home for a financial technology company based out of Minnesota.
The Allens moved to Niverville in July 2021 from Winnipeg. The pair both grew up in the United States but Chuck has many family members in southern Manitoba as his mother grew up on a farm near Gretna.
Chuck and Amy have three children together, and four in total, ranging in ages from 11 to 21.
Chuck says that the vision he and Amy have for TCGS is to make the store more experiential than transactional.
“We want it to be a place for people to spend time without feeling like we’re trying to withdraw money from them like a walking ATM,” he says. “We’ll have some seats for people to chill, we’ll have a puzzle for people to work on, we’ll have places for people to work on their craft. We plan to host a variety of workshops and craft-based clubs year-round. We hope this will be a place where people can connect and be in community together… Where Earth and Hide works to inspire hope through the therapeutic benefit of craft work, we want to use the store to inspire hope through being in community together.”
