ISLE AU HAUT — You can’t call the Island Store a convenience store. It’s really more of a necessity store.
For the 45 year-round residents of this island town off Stonington, the store is not a typical small-town “Mom and Pop” business. It’s the only place to buy groceries and other essential household items. And it’s the only business that can deliver heating fuel during the cold winter months and sell gas for your car.
In other words, it’s part of the community’s life-support system. And for the last two years, it’s the only store in Maine known to be partially funded by a subsidy from town government.
This year at the annual town meeting, residents appropriated $30,000 toward operation of and improvements to the store, which island residents manage as a consumer cooperative known as the Island Store Association. This is the second year of such an appropriation, but the store has functioned as a cooperative since 1970.
Membership in the coop is simple: a one-time fee of $10 gives each member a voice at the annual association board meeting. Suggestions from members are encouraged, and then may be acted upon by the board, which consists of 12 members, including year-round and seasonal residents.
Tim Sawyer is the board president.
“He has a lot of business expertise,” said Bill Calvert, the store’s treasurer and fellow board member.
“We had new management structure take over in September,” he said. “It’s not like Blue Hill, or other coops on the mainland, where you might pay $200 to be a member and get a discount or other benefit from that. In our case, it’s simply for support of the store because it is the single store on the island—and it’s one that we need to keep open for various reasons, of course—one of them being heating fuel.”
At the basic level of survival and comfort, the store makes food and other household necessities available year-round.
Maine Coast Petroleum transports kerosene and gasoline to the island in a tanker ship, which is then pumped directly into the store’s tanks just a few hundred feet from the public landing. It’s then sold and distributed to homes by truck. The lighthouse and the electric company use diesel fuel, which the tanker delivers once or twice a year. Customers pump gasoline into their cars at the store.
Kirsten Barter is store manager, but works in all aspects of its operation.
“I do all the ordering, I work behind the cash register, I have my hands in everything,” she said. “I clean the store. I am training others to work here.
In addition to the food and fuel, Barter notes the store has an extensive hardware selection.
Barter places orders weekly as inventory dictates, but also responds to customer requests.
“Anyone can come in and request anything, and we will get it for them,” she said.
As an Associated Grocers of Maine member, the island store participates in weekly state-wide sales offered by that chain. They and other distributors meet the mailboat in Stonington and load the products on board and the store crew meets the boat on the island to unload.
This year’s budget funded a newly installed computer system, which provides the ability to scan product bar codes and efficiently complete transactions. It also tracks and manages inventory.
“Everything used to be handwritten,” Barter said. “We rarely hand-write a check any more, or a receipt. Most of our customers have an account with us. They deposit funds and then work that down as they do their purchases. People like that. A lot of families come here year after year, maybe with young children; they can come to the store and say ‘Put that on the family account, if you don’t mind.’ We take credit cards too, though.”
