“Surely you had some idea of what you expected at your grand opening?”
So Jeremy’s mom asked after our two-day grand opening celebration last weekend, and the truth is, we really had no idea what to expect. It far exceeded our expectations and we are so thankful to our town for coming out in droves to check out our store!
It was hoppin’ all day long, from just after the ribbon cutting on Friday morning until we closed Saturday afternoon. We knew there was a need for this type of store but truly had no idea just how many like-minded people are in the southern Black Hills. (I don’t know if anyone else realizes it, either – we’re going to have to have a get-together!)
Hot Springs and the surrounding area has an awesome community of people working to grow their own food and we hope that Harvey’s will play a major part in that effort, not just as a store but as a place where we can connect with each other and make our community stronger and more independent.
We were thankful to have THE Harvey on hand for the grand opening. Jeremy’s grandpa is tickled pink to have the store named after him. When he asked why we chose him as the namesake instead of another grandpa (three out of our four grandparents were farmers), we told him that it was a no-brainer since he was a South Dakota farmer who may be our state’s biggest fan. Plus, “Harvey’s Homestead Supply” just has a nice ring, doesn’t it?
Many of you were so kind to want to meet Harvey and Berneice and they enjoyed their weekend as celebrities in Hot Springs. We are so thankful for God’s faithfulness from generation to generation! We love that our children have had the opportunity to know their grand-grandparents well.
This week, we’ve been busy placing re-orders for items that sold out and new orders for items that were requested. We loved getting your requests, and it was fun to see how many of our customers are on the same wavelength: so many of the requests were items that were already on our “future” list so those of course bumped right to the top.
One of my favorite things was having people ask for some seemingly offball thing and being able to say, “YES, we have it!” Yes, we have pickling lime, rennet, and poultry shrink bags!
Though we’d hoped to sell books, we were actually shocked at how many books we sold – they were flying off the shelves all weekend! Who says no one buys books anymore? (Buy them while you still can, right?) We will have a major restock of books next week – oh, who am I kidding? We’ll be adding books anytime we can find an excuse to place a new order, not just next week.
Thank you to everyone who shopped with us on opening weekend. We truly received a warm welcome from our town, from those who live in an apartment and can’t have a chicken or garden but wanted to support a new local business, to those of you who have multiple milk cows and live off-grid. We love Hot Springs and can’t wait to see what the future holds!