Perhaps I should have titled this one "'Peace out, you've got this' Love, Dad."

The quick answer is, The Red Door has condensed into one of their buildings, 116 Ram Cat Alley and now Green Springs is in the larger adjoining building, 120 Ram Cat Alley.  Its the best of both worlds--with one front door, one register and one crew of friendly staff members to help, you get all of the American made and Fair Trade fun of Green Springs along with the home decor and lake living of The Red Door!

The longer answer: I opened Green Springs in October 2009, yep, right in middle of the Great Recession. Directly across the street was The Red Door, which was a large successful gift shop which opened in 2002.  If you've ever been in Green Springs, you know that if we don't have what you're looking for, we encourage you to go to all the other wonderful shops on Ram Cat Alley and in downtown Seneca.  There's room for all of us to be successful.  Despite this philosophy of ours, many people were shocked to find out that The Red Door was owned by my parents.  "Aren't your competing?" was a frequent question, but the answer is and was "nope! We have very different business models."

So, around 2021, my parents wanted to consolidate and work less.  At that time Green Springs was utterly sick of the continuing saga of a roofing disaster at our rented building, and we moved into the larger building that was once The Red Door, allowing The Red Door to consolidate.  After a few months of being in adjoining buildings, my parents realized they didn't have to be sitting there anymore, peace-d out and moved away to ensure that they really really retired.  Now they get to enjoy being grandparents and I'm enjoying running both businesses. 

I'm not one to declare "worst day ever".  I think once you declare a day the worst, you are more inclined to focus on the idiot who cut you off in traffic rather than their adorable dog riding shotgun.  There is good in each day and we are working on focusing on that.  2020 has been a ride. 

On the day we started quarantine, my husband Steve was in a car accident which injured his back and that injury is still troubling him, six months later.  We have been in Colorado, where he is receiving treatment and care, for most of that time.  This is why y'all got to see so much of Amber and Nikki.  I have to leave again for Colorado to help Steve with his treatments.  We live off-grid out there, which translates to a lot of physical work, and he needs my help.  So, with Amber back at her teaching job, Nikki on leave, that leaves our newest team member, McKenley, to hold down the fort.  She's doing an amazing job and is a wonderful soul, like all of our team.  With her class schedule, that leaves us to be open on Thursdays-Saturdays 10am-5pm, starting 9/24/2020, until I'm able to get back in late October.  Once I'm back and Nikki returns, we will be greatly expanding our hours to accommodate holiday shoppers and help customers who want to shop during non peak hours.  We are excited about our new finds and think you'll enjoy seeing what is new here.  

While I've been back, I've had a lot of customers inquiring about some closures we had during summer.  The major closure was due to the actions of the roofers.  Roofers came, in an effort in fix minor tornado damage, and removed our roof and ceiling with no notice, no draping, no tarps and created a huge mess.  This forced us to be closed for nearly a week during the busiest part of summer and has plagued us with leaks over the last three months.  Check out the photos below; the tarps were put in place only after our amazing team member Nikki arrived at work to discover what the roofers had done and insisted on a stop work action until we had time to protect our inventory.  If this had happened on a day we were closed, the losses could have been near total.  It truly was appalling the extend of damages inflicted by the roofers.  The amazing Green Springs team checked every single item in the store and pulled any damaged items.  As always, I am proud and thankful for our team; they worked long and dirty hours to get the inventory protected and the store reassembled once the damage was complete.  You can count of us to ensure you buy the highest of quality items from us.  

Another few random days we were closed so our team could take care of their families and loved ones during time's of need.  It is our ethos to support women and that extends to our team members.  They will never fear for their jobs if they have to take care of family.

We're going to be around for your shopping needs for quite a long time.  Don't worry, we are not leaving Ram Cat Alley.  We love it here.  We love our customers and we look forward to seeing you soon.  Keep an eye out for adorable dogs riding shotgun. We appreciate you.  

I'm not a card player. That's not how I'm spending my quarantine, but recently a friend of a friend, going through a tremendous ordeal said "You might not be given the hand you feel you deserve, but you're obligated to play the hell out of the hand you're dealt".  So, here we all are, playing our hands.

Last week I made the difficult and costly decision to temporarily close the store, ahead of forced mandates, for the health and welfare of the community, to try to "flatten the curve" and do some good in the world.  I put the health and welfare of our community ahead of sales and profit.  I guess when put that way, it was not a difficult decision and I'm rather confused why more didn't make the same decision.

Right now, I'm staying busy plotting with our artists and trying to find great new products for when we do reopen.  And we will reopen.  Green Springs was born in the recession and will find a way to navigate this also.  In the interim, let me know if you have ideas, want to say hi or need anything.  My email is [email protected]

Want to help small businesses during this time but don't want to spend money?  That's easy.  Go everywhere you can leave a review and leave them a highly positive review.  If you can't leave them a full 5 star review, let them know privately what they can do to improve.  

See you soon.
​~Alison

When I was around 13 years old, my mother bought a flower shop in downtown Clemson, which was still a very small town at that time.  I worked at the shop, Morgan's, off and on until she sold it in 2002.  I'd come home from college to help with the Valentine's rush and I even skipped school in high school to work Valentine's (I had all A's, I could miss a bit here or there).  You learn a lot in a small town flower shop.  I knew every single road in Clemson, even Charleston Ave, which at that time was about 100 yards long and had no street sign.  You learn other things too.....the obvious subjects: which flowers are which, how to do arrangements, how to make flowers last longer or open more quickly....and the not as obvious subjects about relationships.  It was a small town and this was before grocery store flowers were available for discreet purchase and it was before Google to help with out of town flower purchases, but I digress.  

​Valentine's Day for me was work and a ton of it with very little sleep.  By the end of the day on the 14th, I'd have red eyes (no sleep), a slightly delirious gate (again, no sleep) and bloody hands from stripping thorns off roses.  Roses have thorns and they must be removed, or stripped, before the rose can go out to the customer.  I was a stripper.  One afternoon in the Valentine's rush, I was taking orders with a long noisy line but our designers had run out of stripped roses, so my mother comes marching out front to take my place and tells me "I need a stripper!  Go to the back and strip, will ya?"  Dead silence and a bunch of stares.  

Valentine's Day was, at the time, something through which to suffer.  Now, looking back with decades gone by, I nearly miss it.  I miss the crew of characters.  We had fun.

Thanksgiving is a weird one for me.  I give thanks every day.  I understand how fortunate I am, but my Thanksgivings have been a little off center over the years.  In junior high and high school, I would head to Atlanta with friends and run a half marathon.  I kept that tradition through college and grad school too, so those years my Thanksgivings were more about friendship, sweat and power bars than turkey and cranberries.  I loved those years. 

When we moved to Michigan Thanksgiving briefly became a little more traditional.  A dear friend of mine invited Steve and me to Thanksgiving, perhaps as the teachers of Thanksgiving as we were the only Americans at the dinner.  Surrounded by friends from Israel, Turkey and Iran, we celebrated Thanksgiving.   My status as a non-traditional Thanksgiving-er was revealed there and I’m afraid I wasn’t the best Thanksgiving teacher as I don’t eat turkey and I did not bring a traditional dish to the dinner, but we all enjoyed the hot syrupy mint tea and friendships.

Sushi and comfort movies from the 80s were the mainstay of Thanksgivings for the next decade.  Something about a little raw salmon, Goonies and hot jasmine tea will always remind me of Thanksgiving. 
​
Whatever form your Thanksgiving takes, I hope you have a good one.   Delight in your own traditions. 
​

So I’m *that* person, walking along the beach with their hands full of garbage.  I’m washable, so I don’t mind picking it up, taking it to a trash can, and removing some waste from the beach and ocean.  I do the same on home waters….you can often find me on the lakes around here with a few pieces of garbage on the nose of my paddleboard.  Its been cooking in my brain for a while about the soap bags we use at Green Springs.  As much as I love our natural soaps, I hate the bags.  Those plastic things, that when floating in water, would look an awful lot like a jellyfish, at least it would to a sea turtle.  The chance of these plastic bags getting into our waterways bothers me and there is something I can do about it.  So, now, we have choices. Two choices.  One choice is a compostable bag.  These bags look a lot like the bags we used to use; however, they are certified compostable.  The bags are a little more rigid and cost me, well, a good bit more.  Choice two is a compostable waxy sheet of paper that we can wrap around the soaps and is on par in price to our former bags. 
I chose to go with compostable options and I am not passing along the cost to you.  Your choice is the compostable bag (one or more per bag) or the compostable sheets (one or more per sheet).  You tell us which you want for your soaps, and we’ll make it happen.  If you opt for one or more bars of soap in the sheets of paper, we’ll toss in a sample or two for choosing the less expensive option, just our way of saying thanks. 
This makes me happy.  Every time we make a choice to better the world, the better the world will be.   
​

How do you measure need?  How do you decide who to help? 

For years, Green Springs has been selling Bridgewater candles, which help to feed kids overseas.  We continue to be proud of this mission.  We continue to sell Bridgewater candles and take pride in knowing we are helping to combat worldwide hunger.  We're feeding kids.  But what's the answer when customers ask "what about kids going hungry here?"  I had my response and I believe in the response of "the kids fed by RiceBowls and Bridgewater are in areas without any government support, without food banks or safety nets; some of the children are found at the trash dump".  That is all true.  But still, how do you measure need?  There is a hunger crisis in Oconee County.  There are children here that arrive to school Monday morning ravenous as they went with too little food over the weekend.  How can they learn when all they can think of it food?

Well.  It's time.  It's time for a better answer to those customers' questions about kids going hungry here. 

Here's our new answer.  Every time you buy a Milkhouse candle at Green Springs, Green Springs will donate $1 to the Education Foundation of Oconee County's BackPack Program, a nonprofit organaization which assists to feed over 500 children here in Oconee County at the cost of $160/child/year.  I like this answer.

Milkhouse candles are 100% paraffin free and are made in the USA from American grown soy.  Milkhouse candles burn super clean and have wonderful fragrances. 

At Green Springs, we are proud of what we do and we are proud of both of our candle lines: Bridgewater Candles and Milkhouse Candles.  Buy these American made candles & help feed hungry kids.  This is cool.

Today marks the beginning of year 7 for Green Springs.  It has been a fun, wild and completely unexpected ride!  It all began with this letter.  I've changed so much since then....I wore only black clothes; my most predominate trait was being highly strung, I considered Tums to be a food group.....nightmares characterized my sleep.....now my closet explodes in color,  I've been called "laid back" numerous times (really!), and I don't even own Tums.  I am grateful for our wonderful customers who made this milestone possible.  Dear customers, thank you, thank you, thank you!!!

I was cleaning and organizing my bedroom the other day, and I found a bracelet that stopped me cold.  It made me look out at the rainy day and cry.  I've never spoken of it outside my closest handful of friends and I've never spoken of the little girl who gave it to me.  A little girl name July, pronounced "Julie", gave me the bracelet in Haiti years ago.  She slipped it on my wrist, smiled and ran off to play.  July was a rambunctious child, wild, playful, smart, cunning, strong and strong willed.  She was perhaps a little old and little heavy to be carried around, but she still liked it.  She'd leap at me, I'd catch her and go staggering back...  She was rough and tumble and liked to play with the boys.  She had a huge smile she wielded freely.

She's in the wind. 

Shortly after I left Haiti, police and a judge, armed with what were falsified documents, stormed the home and took July.  Angelo, the little boy of whom I speak often and openly, hid in the bushes and would not leave his hiding spot for hours.  All of the children were terrified at the storming and forced abduction.  I use the word "stormed" justly.  The children's home was a compound; it was double walled, glass and barbed wire crested each wall.  The children's terror must have been intense.  Soon after, on laundry day, Marie stripped July's bed, washed her sheets and put the clean sheets back on the bed.  Marie simply stated "July will like fresh sheets when she comes home".  In their resilient way, the children slowly coped and held onto hope.

As everything does in Haiti, it was a long process to uncover what happened and to prove the documents were false.  Despite the truth being on the side of the children's home, July's whereabouts were lost.  She has never been recovered.  It is my daily prayer that the woman behind the heinous abduction, the falsified papers and the fear instilled into the children did this deed in a misguided act of love and that somewhere July is coping, the way Haitian children do. 

I am not sure why I finally decided to share this story.  Perhaps this story has been in me too long and I finally had to share. 

I often tell people about some of our products and a lot of the store's focus being "Fair Trade".  But what does that mean?  Is it like Fair Trade Coffee or Chocolate?  Yes.  And no.  Nonfood products are not certified to be Fair Trade in the same manner as food products.  Fair Trade is a trendy term with sometimes a loose definition.  That scares me.  I'm a scientist. I like clear cut definitions and a solid understanding of what is what.  I like numbers.  Fair Trade, well, it is a bit more about trust.  There are several organizations which companies/crafters/importers can join to become "Fair Trade" members.  As we currently are, Green Springs will never become a "Fair Trade" member store as we focus very heavily on American made as well as Fair Trade.  I believe both have value and importance. 

Still, but what is this Fair Trade?  For me and for Green Springs, we have developed a pretty good radar and a good sense of companies' agendas.  We've been in this game for awhile and have developed a network we trust to uphold the tenants of Fair Trade, which means the worker is paid a fair wage in fair working conditions and those employed are often women, teenagers and the disabled who otherwise would be destitute.  Value is placed on native crafts and sustainability.  It's not my goal to displace native craft for the sake of Fair Trade sneaker factories. 

So, at the end of the day, for Green Springs, we call items Fair Trade if the crafter is paid a fair wage in fair conditions and emphasis is placed on native crafts with sustainability and no barriers are placed for hiring women, the handicapped or the destitute.  For me, it puts a form of labor regulations in areas lacking.

The next questions are usually "what is a fair wage?" and "are child labor law in place?".  That's tricky and sometimes more difficult for us to understand.  The fair wage in within the context of the region.  Is it American minimum wage? No.  Its almost always much less--its reflective of the cost of living of the area.  Now....child labor.  Yes and no.  Its difficult to imagine, but in some areas of the world, children are bought and sold.  I have met some of these children.  Sold.  The ones I have met were sold and later saved.  Not all are so fortunate as to be saved.  Teenagers are kicked out of the home with no education, no funds and very limited choices.   Many of the organizations who I deal with will employ those teenagers to save them from making choices that we cannot fathom.