Please Join Us at Cherry Republic’s Fire Sale Fundraiser!
10% of all sales this weekend will go to the City of Charlevoix to help in the recovery efforts after two major downtown fires in just over a month. Any customer that orders at Cherry Republic’s website or calls in or comes into our stores will help raise money. The state fire marshall let Bob and Tamie (Our manager) into our Charlevoix store and below is a short blog with photos of what they saw. All of our cherry products have been condemned and it is a relief to know that insurance is covering the entire loss.
The Charlevoix Fire is devastating to this small town. Beyond being a tremendous loss of property, it has dramatically reduced sales to the remaining stores as few people are coming to shop. This weekend Cherry Republic is putting together a fundraiser in an effort to help Charlevoix do an advertising campaign to help bring shoppers to Charlevoix this spring and summer. These photos show that Cherry Republic will probably not have a store in Charlevoix this summer, but we sure hope that the city still has a successful year without us.
Here are our President’s thoughts as he came into the fire scene in his store for the first time: I came in expecting the worse, And this first look at our store was the worse. Nothing is salvageable, not even the floor can be saved in this area of the store.
Here is Tamie, our Charlevoix Manager looking at the mess. On a normal January day, she would be helping a non-skier shop while their family hits the slopes. Fortunately, Tamie, is on paid time off until we get a new store operating.
There is hope in this catastrophic fire. Although, an absolute mess, the floor is relatively intact. The maple hardwood is just a little buckled from all the water the firemen sprayed.
All our cherry products are a total loss. But we expected that, as our State food inspector has already condemned every cherry product in the store, so it should be an easy insurance claim.
There is a chance that you may see some of our displays in another location this summer. This cart looks salvageable, if we can clean those black water marks off. Of course, that all depends on what insurance will cover, but if this helps us get a store up here in the Little Traverse region this summer, than so be it.
It became so hot that the wines uncorked themselves. Or maybe the ghosts have settled in already.
We thought that we would show you some photos of everything before we cleaned it up and tried to sell it to you. The chocolate is just a little melted, it should still be good.
… Just joking!
Here is our landlord, Fred DeMartino, inspecting the second floor of his devastated building. He had ten offices he rented out to insurance agents, realtors, tech companies, etc., who all were getting hard drives and other valuable things while we were looking at our storefront. Fred has a great attitude, “We will rebuild better than before,” he says. And Cherry Republic hopes to help him. It may take a while, but we will be back in this great space in this great town again.
