Ten Thousand Villages’ Carytown storefront (Photo by Jay Paul)
Thanks to a new financial model, the Ten Thousand Villages store in Carytown will be able to celebrate three decades in business next year.
The nonprofit fair-trade store first opened near The Byrd Theatre in 1995 as SelfHelp Crafts of the World before rebranding as a Ten Thousand Villages store two years later, operating what was akin to a franchise of the 78-year-old Pennsylvania-based nonprofit. “I would say we are one of the first and [one of] the pioneers of the fair-trade movement in Richmond,” store manager and Executive Director Aisha Eqbal said in June.
The store moved to its current location at 3201 W. Cary St. in 2001. In 2015, its then-executive director said sales were high enough to consistently place it among the top 10 to 15 of Ten Thousand Villages stores nationwide. “Every staff member and volunteer knows those products and countries and can tell you about it,” Eqbal said. “I think that really creates a totally different and unique shopping experience, and I think that’s what’s kept us here so long.”
Recently, however, the financial future looked bleak. “With online shopping dominating the retail world, our brick-and-mortar business is facing an extreme financial crisis, and the clock is ticking for our survival,” reads a March Facebook post. The store’s board of directors eventually approached the Ten Thousand Villages central office about acquiring the store, Corporate Brand and Marketing Manager Halley Jones says, adding that “there was a really big openness to doing that.” A summer sales event on July 21 served as a last hurrah before the store closed for remodeling.
While the store and products will have changed when Ten Thousand Villages reopens Sept. 13, Jones says the experience for customers won’t. For example, the staff will still be made up of familiar faces such as the new store manager, Leo Sensenich, who was initially hired last year as the store’s social media manager. “Our store managers really own and lead the store in their own way,” Jones says. “They have a lot of freedom to execute local events and participate in partnerships with other businesses.”
The change secures the store’s future while maintaining its overall mission of supporting artisans around the world.
"We are reinvesting in the store,” Jones says, “and we are reinvesting in the community there.”
