St.Francis Hospital

I have lived in Blue Island, IL for most of my adult life. Blue Island is a beautiful city reminiscent of small town communities across the country. It was built on a very human scale, meaning that most residents can walk to the business district and indeed to almost any part of the city within twenty minutes. Groceries, medical services, restaurants, and other everyday needs are always just a few blocks away.
Twenty eight years ago, when we first moved here, the city was a thriving community with an active business district. Over the years we have witnessed the fall and rebirth and faltering again of the uptown business district, the increasing decay of our infrastructure, and the slow degeneration of our industrial base.
The announced closing of St. Francis Hospital has come as a huge blow to the residents of Blue Island. Some argue that it will make no difference to the city since St. Francis Hospital is a not-for-profit organization and does not pay real estate tax. Some say that the impact of losing over 1400 jobs will be minimal because there is a great demand for medical professionals of all kinds, and these people will easily find other employment. There are other hospitals in the area, although it’s clear that none are as convenient not only to our residents, but also to many of the surrounding cities and towns. However, the psychological impact of the closing and the effect on other local business is immeasurable. In a struggling city, the closing of yet another major employer is disheartening, and the uptown restaurants and stores will be losing a profitable source of business. As a business owner I realize that none of the above is a sound financial reason to keep an unprofitable hospital open.
Residents are concerned that many doctors who have offices in our city will close these offices in order to move closer to another hospital. The closing of the hospital will no doubt result in an increased strain on other nearby hospitals, and a general decrease in the quality of healthcare in the south suburban area. The increased travel time and expense to the next closest hospital will no doubt result in an increased loss of life. The ultimate cost of the closing of the hospital will be much greater than the $20 million a year that the hospital is said to be losing.
The long term solution will be difficult. However, if a long term solution is not found, St. Francis Hospital will be another casualty in the ongoing national health care crisis, as will the people who have depended on St. Francis to provide quality medical care.
The fact that everyone, from the janitors at St. Francis, to the doctors, to myself, to my neighbors and neighboring businesses, to the mayor of Blue Island, and the local Representatives and Congressmen, was blind sided by this announcement is a testament to our lack of community. How was it that no one knew what was about to happen?
People have mocked me when I mourned the closing of some mom and pop business on Western Avenue, but it’s not funny anymore. It’s no longer just one family needing to find another source of income. For the 1400 employees facing the possible loss of their jobs, and for the city of Blue Island as a whole, the closing of the hospital borders on catastrophe.
I will not suggest that we each donate $5.00 to St. Francis. That would be ridiculous. I ask that we each do what we are able to do. Call, write, and e-mail your local officials, your Representatives and Congressmen, St. Francis Hospital, the Sisters of Saint Mary, and the Archdiocese of Chicago. We must all fight not only for the hospital, but for our city as well.
Let me ask you this: What are you prepared to do?

Candace Carr
CARR home-garden-holiday

What comes first?

Whenever I am met by a thought or opinion that differs from my own, I immediately suffer from brain freeze. As you might imagine, this has not served me well. Once, in kindergarten, a schoolmate said “Your brother is a moron” and my snappy rejoinder was “So?” which, if nothing else, made me look like I supported that position, which I did not. A few years later, when another child hurled an insult at me, my potentially fatal reply was “You wanna make something of it?”, not realizing that I was about to be pummeled in the school parking lot. I learned to keep my knee-jerk reactions to myself after that episode, but this technique also has limited success. My silence is often misinterpreted as apathy, anger, agreement, disinterest, defiance or any number of other responses, depending on what reaction the other person is expecting from me.
I was grateful then, after reading the last issue of the FORUM, that I had a few days think about some of the things that had been written. Two letters were published, with two very different tones. One was measured and thoughtful; the other was angry and accusatory. I read and re-read the letters, waited for the impact of what was being said, and tried to view them objectively.
What I finally realized is that Tom Hawley, Gus Fuller, and I are all asking for the same thing, just from different points of view. What we all want is a better city, more involvement by the community, and a better business district. We are looking at the same problem through the filters of our own personal experiences.
I have been asking residents to spend their money locally. $5.00 is an arbitrary amount, picked by me because it is a non-threatening sum. My initial challenge was this: “Take $5.00 and visit a business that you think has nothing you want. Introduce yourself and buy something you can use....” It is my hope that if people do this, they will become more aware of what’s available here in Blue Island. It would be a manageable step toward being more involved in our community.
Tom Hawley is asking businesses to be more aware of the time constraints that working residents have. I have to agree that the business hours kept by most of the businesses in town are difficult to explain. It is equally difficult for the businesses to determine what would be a good time to be open. We can sit with the doors open, lights and heat on, during peak shopping hours, and not a soul wanders in. Conversely, if we stop by the shop at some odd hour of the night or day, invariably someone sees us and comes rushing over to shop.
Gus Fuller is asking that residents demand more from our elected officials. He would like to see a more aggressive stance toward recruiting and maintaining better businesses for our business district. Perhaps he is unaware of the efforts that have been made over the years. Even the ubiquitous Starbucks Coffee is not interested.
What comes first, the chicken or the egg? Do customers willing to spend money in Blue Island bring in better businesses and compel them to be open longer? Do businesses with better hours bring in better customers who spend more money? Does a city government with a strong business recruiting mindset bring in more customers and better businesses?
In my opinion, all of these are necessary; none will succeed without the others. It’s like a great symphony, where the piece only sounds right if all the instruments are played well. I will continue to play my part, and improve where I am able. We can only ask that everyone else do the same.

Candace Carr
CARR home-garden-holiday

Real Businesses

I thought that I had the article for this issue written, and then a man I had never met before came into the store. He started by telling me that his mother was coming into town from Canada. He was looking for places to take her; shopping, restaurants, the sort of thing you do with guests from out of town. He moved here last summer, and really liked living in Blue Island. We talked a while, and then he made an interesting comment. He said, “Some of the businesses on Western seem to be playing at being a business.” He mentioned the odd hours some places have and the non-opening during regular posted business hours. It seemed to him that many places in town are not real businesses. It’s almost as if we are just hobby businesses.
It reminded me of a conversation that I had with a fellow business owner just a few days before. He told me that for years he felt that he had only been playing at being a business, but finally, and with a few changes, things had picked up and now he felt that he had a real business. He has left his other job, the one that had truly been supporting his business, and is now counting on his Blue Island business to support him.
I had been turning this conversation over in my head for a few days already when the aforementioned man came in. I know that many business owners on Western have other jobs. In our case, either my husband or I at one time or another are working at some other job to keep our cash flow moving. The fact that so many businessmen in this city need to work other jobs puts our uptown business district at a disadvantage. If you hire help to cover your business while you are working, you can never be sure that they are taking care of your customers the way that you would. If you close your business while you are working elsewhere then people inevitably come when you are closed. Either way you lose customers. Of course, like many things in life, it comes down to money. But it also comes down to awareness.
The businessman I talked with had become aware that he was not attracting the number of customers he needed for his business to thrive. He told me that if he just had maybe 10 more customers that would frequent his place that he could make it. He made some changes that worked, and now he has those customers and then some. I know that all business owners are constantly becoming aware of problems and are fine tuning their business every chance they get.
The other side of the coin is the residents of our community. We all need to fine tune our awareness of what’s available in Blue Island. I still get complaints (another one this past week) that there’s no place to buy a greeting card, and when I mentioned a few other stores that carry them, the response was, “I never thought of them.”
A woman complained that the Jewel is too expensive, and when I brought up the suggestion that she shop at the Hispanic grocery stores she replied, “I don’t like Mexican food.” For anyone who has never ventured into one of our city’s Hispanic grocers, let me tell you that there is a lot more in there than refried beans and chilies. Milk, bread, butter, eggs, fresh fruit and vegetables, and a butcher are all waiting right inside, and many times for less money than the chain stores are charging. Don’t be afraid to go in.
As a community we need to become more aware of the businesses that surround us, and what they offer. If we continue in our efforts to support the existing businesses on an ongoing basis, then money becomes less of a problem, and more of our businesses will be able to operate in true business fashion.

Candace Carr
CARR home-garden-holiday

Share the Love

There is a familiar saying “Everyone brings happiness here...some by entering, some by leaving”. Patty Wanninger, the Director of the Blue Island Public Library has left us. Patty was a wonderful director and a Blue Island booster and from the very beginning brought me happiness. I was sorry to see her go, but family called her back home to her former state of Wisconsin.
I attended her farewell luncheon and while I was there I ran into a fellow business owner. After we had eaten, he stood up and made a short speech about the wonderful things Patty had done, which are many. One thing he mentioned has stuck with me and I’ve been thinking about it. He said that often, when Patty was on her lunch break, she would stop in just to say hello. His business is not the type that you can stop in and spend $5.00 every now and then. In fact, the average resident may only visit this business once or twice in a lifetime. Many of his customers are able to do business by phone. He was touched that Patty made the effort to spend just a few minutes chatting every now and then.
As a business owner, I have days when I might see very few people, or even none at all what with the winter snow the way it has been. On a day like that it would be wonderful to have someone stop in just to talk for a few minutes. It brightens your day to think that someone cared enough to visit, even if they weren’t going to buy something.
Patty had a way of sharing her love of Blue Island with everyone around her. We all could take a page from her book. Some of us say “I love Blue Island” and then fail to demonstrate it. So even if you’re not prepared to spend $5.00 you might think about stopping in a few places just to say hello.
By the way, my friend Richard Wiseman wrote a letter to the editor asking businesses to please shovel a foot path through the snow banks to provide easy access for older pedestrians. I have to add to this by asking drivers to take care not to park across the foot paths that are shoveled out. Stop and consider for a moment that it may be your grandmother who has to climb the snow bank.
One last thing. The Forum Newspaper is the only newspaper that we have in Blue Island. It is the only independent source from which we can get our local news. Their funding is from advertisers and donations. So I’m making a personal appeal to you to share the love and send the Forum a note of thanks, and it wouldn’t hurt if you included a donation. A mere $5.00 from each adult would end up being a donation of $50,000.00, and I know that it would be greatly appreciated.

Candace Carr
CARR home-garden-holiday

Big Money

You might not have noticed. I’m embarrassed to say that I didn’t. Not at first anyway. Another Blue Island business has closed on Western Avenue. I had only been in there once or twice and it wasn’t a regular stop for me. There are roughly 100 businesses on Western between 127th Street and Grove, so if one closes here or there it’s easy not to notice. But you can’t help but notice the cumulative result. There are a lot of vacant buildings in the Uptown area, and the number is increasing.
Any business, big or small, good, bad or indifferent cannot stay open if they are not making money. And new businesses are reluctant to move into a community where other businesses are closing due to lack of support by the local citizens.
The question is “What can we do?” Let me start by telling you about a woman who visited me. I’ll call her Katherine. Katherine stopped in the other day to discuss my writings to the Forum newspaper. She wanted to know why there are no good grocery stores in Blue Island. She doesn’t like Jewel and apparently feels that she has been mistreated at the independent grocery stores that are here. She told me that she couldn’t find a reasonably priced hairdresser that she was happy with. She told me that there’s no place to buy a greeting card. “How can I spend money here when there is no place to spend it? When are they going to open some good stores?”
I was talking to another business owner who told me that “There is nothing us little guys can do. We need some big money business to move into Blue Island before things will get better. Until they do that the little guy is just marking time.”
The thing is that there is no magical THEY. There is only us. So, what can we do? A successful business district is really a partnership between the business owners and the citizenry. We have to be willing to work with each other or nothing improves.
So let’s start with Katherine. I don’t know where she is buying her groceries now, but she should go back to the stores she’s been in and try again. One grocery store she’s only visited once, and didn’t like the way she was treated. Maybe it was a really bad day for the business owner or the clerk who waited on her. I don’t say that as an excuse, but it does happen. Try again, and if things haven’t improved, then a complaint is in order. The same is true of the hairdresser; if you don’t like the haircut, speak up. Picking a greeting card is a highly personal thing, but there are several places in Blue Island that carry them.
On the part of the business owners, there are things we can do. Number one is treating our customers well, and listening to complaints with an open mind. We can improve. It is easier to keep an old customer than to find a new one, and that is where our attention should be focused. The owner of the grocery where that woman visited probably doesn’t realize that a customer was lost through a careless word, or act of neglect. All customers are created equal and should be treated that way.
As far as big money is concerned, make no mistake, there is already big money in Blue Island. With an average per capita income of $16,000 and 23,000 people we have an income of $368,000,000 a year.* We just don’t spend it here. We’re spending it in Crestwood, or in Chicago, or who knows where. If we want to see a better uptown business district then there are things we need to do. Talk to the business owners, and tell them what you want. Visit a business you have not been into before. The business owners can try new products and see how they are received. Explore new vendors, be open to customers suggestions. Last, but not least, spend your $5.00 in Blue Island today.

Candace Carr
CARR home-garden-holiday

*These figures are rounded. Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Island,_Illinois

A New Year, a New Beginning

There seems to be some concern about whether or not spending money at Walgreens or Jewel is as beneficial to Blue Island as spending money at the independent stores. Let me answer this question. If you spend $100.00 on groceries at Jewel it provides many benefits to the city. Some of my own neighbors are employed at both Walgreens and Jewel, and so it contributes to overall employment and I’m all for a fully employed city. And, the tax dollars collected are distributed the same no matter where you spend your money as long as you spend it in Blue Island. However, if you feel that you have fulfilled your desire to support the city by spending $100.00 on groceries or prescriptions and stop there it won’t be long before the only businesses in town will be Walgreens and Jewel.
It was back in August that my first letter to the Forum was published. At that time, I urged people to spend $5.00 a day in the uptown area. I asked people to visit stores that they hadn’t been in before. Explore your neighborhood. If you have always bought your groceries at Jewel and always eat breakfast at DeMar’s the money that you spend there helps the city, but not in the way I was describing. I’m asking for an investment of $5.00 a day that you would have ordinarily spent elsewhere. Find a way to buy the other things you need somewhere in Blue Island.
So how did we do in 2007? The results are mixed. Some businesses did very well, and others did not. Our own Christmas sales from Blue Island customers were up a whopping 46.5% over last year. What I say to that is WOW! Followed by thank you, thank you, thank you! That is an incredible increase, and it makes me realize that many of you made a concerted effort to shop Blue Island, and to shop our store. This allowed me to bring in part-time help when I needed it the most. Thank you again to everyone that went out of their way to shop here.
It bothers me that other businesses did not do as well. We all should have experienced similar increases. It may be that because I have been writing, people feel that they know me and feel comfortable coming in, but I can tell you this: Walk into any business on Western and say “I’m here to spend my $5.00!” and you will be greeted with a smile, a handshake, or a hug.
This is the time of year when we all want to stay home and stay warm, and for that exact reason this is the time of year when most businesses are slow. People avoid going out and only do the things that are necessary. This is also when those Christmas bills come in and we are in shock. Nevertheless, I urge you to get out this month. Pick a warmer day and check out the uptown area. If you usually stop in at County Fair for a few of your groceries, try visiting Stefanelli and Sons or El Ranchito. Need a haircut? There are several hairdressers and barbers here, no need to go to BoRics.
We are at the beginning of a brand new year. Let’s make it a good one for ourselves, for the businesses, and for the city. Here is the math for the coming year. Approximately 10,000 adults live here. At $5.00 a day spent by each one, that would be an investment of $50,000.00 a day, $350,000.00 a week, $1,500,000.00 a month, and $18,250,000.00 by the end of this year. That type of investment would be huge. The city would be thriving. Let me ask you this; where do you spend your money?

Look for me on Western, with a fiver in my hand!
Candace Carr
CARR home-garden-holiday

The Season of Giving

Commercials at Christmastime are very troubling. They make us overspend and/or feel inadequate. You haven’t bought your wife that Christmas Lexus? You haven’t picked up that Cadillac your husband’s been eyeing? Only two days left to pick up that monster T.V. or buy your teenagers the cell phone of their dreams!
Worse than these however, are the commercials that make us believe that we are doing something that we are not. You’ve seen the commercial in which people are happily prancing through a door with little 5% bull’s-eyes floating over their heads. It’s a Target commercial, and in it they tell us that 5% of their net profits are given back to the community. It makes you feel good about shopping there. You can think “5% is going back to my community”, as you pay at the check-out. But be warned, net profit is what is left after a company pays out all of its expenses. Not 5% of what you’ve spent, but 5% of the profit that they made from that sale. For my purposes I’m going to call this contributing off the bottom. Giving from what’s left over.
Most of the business owners I know here contribute money off the top. They may or may not decide to contribute to your particular cause, but they don’t go to their accountant to find out what’s left over that they can give. They give without considering the bottom line. I got curious. I e-mailed Target asking how much they have given back to Blue Island. This is the response that I received “I'm sorry for any disappointment, but we don't distribute a list of organizations who receive Target grants.” So I started calling around various organizations in town, trying to find out if any of them had received grants. I did find one. Then, oddly enough, I was at Target the other day, and they have a list of grant recipients posted by the bathrooms. According to that list they have contributed a little over $1000.00 to educational facilities in our city. However, they did not list the one place that I talked to. Giving Target the benefit of the doubt, (they might have contributed to other places they did not list at the store) I’m going to say that they have contributed maybe $3000.00 to Blue Island. I think our business is fairly typical. We have contributed to School Districts 130 and 218, the Fourth of July fireworks, the Blue Island Park District, the Blue Island Library, Blue Cap, the Blue Island Historical Society, Main Street Blue Island, St. Francis Hospital, the Blue Island Chamber of Commerce, and Neighborhood Watch Group #37. The amount donated will be over $1000.00 by the end of the year, one third of what Target may have donated and that does not include the tickets for spaghetti suppers, pancake breakfasts, raffles, Girl Scout cookies, and school fund raisers. What does this mean to you? The percentage of your money that is given back to the community is far greater when you shop your local businesses. So next time you spend $5.00 in a neighborhood store, you can think “I’m contributing to my community” and it will be a lot more than a percentage of somebody’s net profit. On top of that, 1% of your purchase is given back to Blue Island in the form of sales tax. Let me ask you this: Where do you spend your money, and is it truly helping your community? Candace Carr CARR home-garden-holiday
P.S. In 2008, we are allowing our customers to determine where we invest our donations in the community. When you shop with us, please let us know which organization you would like us to support.