Art
Van marks 50th with $1 million challenge
In honor of the 50th anniversary of Art Van Furniture,
based in Warren, Chairman and Founder Art Van Elslander is providing $1,000,000
to fund 50 grants ranging from $5,000 to $50,000, to support programs
serving children as well as health and human services throughout Michigan.
The grants will be designed as Challenge Gifts for each
organization in order to maximize fundraising opportunities.
“It is our honor to give back to communities and
charities across our great state of Michigan that have supported Art Van
Furniture over the past 50 years,” Elslander said in a statement.
“The $1 million Charity Challenge will benefit 50 remarkable and
deserving organizations to help them continue their work and improve the
lives of people across our state...”
Eligible organizations must have tax-exempt 501(c)(3)
status. Applications are due June 30. Recipients will be notified by July
31.
Community giving is nothing new to Art Van, which was
named by Michigan Retailers Association as a Michigan Retailer of the
Year in 2000 in recognition of its long record of community involvement,
including successful efforts to save Detroit’s Thanksgiving Day parade
in the 1980s.
Downtown Holland jeweler Gerry Klaver, of Post Jewelry,
wasn’t going to let hard times get in the way of folks honoring their
moms on Mother’s Day.
With the unemployment rate in the Holland–Grand Haven
area hovering around 12 percent in March and April, Klaver offered to
give away a strand of freshwater pearls to anyone who had lost his or
her job and couldn’t afford a Mother’s Day gift.
“There’s not enough goodwill that goes around
anymore. It’s just dog eat dog, me, me, me,” he said. “We
just want to give back to the community that has given to us.”
Klaver wouldn’t ask for any identification or proof
of joblessness. “We’re just doing it by faith. If they’re
going to take us, they’re going to have to live with it,” he
said. “That’s something they have to live with, not me.”
Retail Superstars, a new book by retailing expert
George Whalin, calls the Toy House in Jackson one of the 25 best
independent stores in the United States, the Jackson Citizen Patriot
reports.
The latest accolades come as Toy House and Baby Too celebrates
its 60th anniversary.
Toy House President Phil Wrzesinski is the grandson of
founder and former Jackson Mayor Phil Conley.
Eighty-seven-year-old owner Jerry Horrocks and his sons
Kim and Kirk and the rest of the staff were on hand June 1 when Horrocks
Farm Market in the Lansing area’s Delta Township celebrated the
50th anniversary of the family business. To mark the occasion, the elder
Horrocks said he had ordered 3,000 extra roses for the day to give to
female customers.
“Service is a very big part of our business,”
he said. “We appreciate the customers.”
That means not only music and roses for customers, the
Lansing State Journal reported. It’s also the free coffee all the
time and the sturdy paper grocery bags that don’t rip in the parking
lot. Decorated by local schoolchildren, those bags have become a staple
at Greener Delta, Delta Township’s annual ecology event.
With a father who had a stall at the Lansing City Market
many years ago, Jerry told the Journal that he feels he’s always
been in the produce business.
Over the years, Horrocks has added bakery and deli items,
ethnic foods, plants and flowers. A separate building stocks trees and
shrubs, along with the trellises, tools and other gardening items.
Although the news is usually about retailers closing stores
or going bankrupt, it should be noted that major retail chains across
the United States plan to open more stores than they close this year.
A study of 250 major retail chains by commercial real
estate information provider CoStar Group found they plan to open nearly
4,000 stores and close about 3,600.
Walgreens plans the most store openings: 540.
At 4,000 new stores, opening activity would be down nearly
40 percent from 2007. Nevertheless, openings top closings.
The plans, of course, are subject to future market conditions.
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