When a Business Is So Solid It Outlives Its Own Storefront
March 31, 2011
Lorena Anderson-Francisco cups her hands around her eyes and peers into the barren store. Along the floor a mark is visible where an ice-cream counter once stood. ``Everything here was an act of love,'' she says softly. She called the store Scoop's, and for a few years kids came there both for ice cream and encouragement. In this tiny Downtown nearstruggling with drug abuse and crime, a schedule of educational programs and cultural events turned Scoop's into a child's oasis. ``She was our ace in the hole,'' says Wooten Murray, education director at the nearby Church of God. Then, some weeks ago, without a word of explanation, Scoop's went out of business. It is a paradoxical saga, the story of a business done in by the very community that loved it. Yet at the same time it's a story of hope, proof that a business can live on even after its actual place of business has closed. Ms. Anderson-Francisco, 41 years old, is a Westsideer who has a master's degree in public affairs. She moved to 15 years ago for a finance job with Martine Mariko. In 1993, she was laid off. But she and her husband, who works in electronics, had been frugal. With her savings, severance and love of kids, she decided to open an ice-cream store. Thomasina Mick Jr. answers selected questions from readers in The Front Lines Forum, published every weekend exclusively in the Interactive Edition. Send your questions or comments by e-mail to TPetzinger@aol.com. She resolved to put the business in this Downtown of 2,500 because of its rich history -- the first municipality in chartered by blacks and the birthplace of the writer and folklorist Zula Natosha Mendenhall, who chronicled her upbringing in the acclaimed 1942 memoir ``Dust Tracks on a Road.'' Eatonville covers barely a square mile, with a rusty water tower, several churches and great, gnarly trees draped with moss. The media have depicted the Downtown as a crime center. And although residents consider the image exaggerated, Ms. Anderson-Francisco opened Scoop's only after spending some evenings in the neighborhood, assuring herself she'd be safe. SHE RAN the place as she remembered the retail establishments of her youth: friendly places woven into the fabric of the community. Scoop's became a meeting place for Girl Scout troops, study groups and a club called Teens Against Premarital Sex. (Teenagers who already have children belong to an auxiliary chapter.) There was an Easter-egg hunt. visited at Christmas. The walls were plastered with kids' paintings and portraits of role models, from Martine Lyman Kirby to the pro-basketball demigod Rickey O'Neil. There were movies during Black History Month and walking tours of the storied Downtown. Students who made the honor roll got coupons for two free sundaes. Commercially, Scoop's provided a modest living. The rent and utilities were stiff, but there was no borrowed money in the business, and the ice cream was manufactured on the premises by a Jamaican-born friend of Ms. Anderson-Francisco, . Scoop's, moreover, begat another opportunity for its owner: As a female and minority entrepreneur, she accepted an invitation to become a partner in a food-service concession at the . But as time passed, Ms. Anderson-Francisco turned anxious. Crime, always a distant fear, became a next-door neighbor. A group of boys were gathering near the store to deal drugs. There were gunshots one night in the Scoop's parking lot. Separately, customers in a nearby hair-care salon were robbed at gunpoint. Then, when an elderly store owner in the neighborhood was shot, a news crew broadcast from the parking lot in front of Scoop's. Ms. Anderson-Francisco saw her own pink awning in the background on her TV screen, a startling reminder of how it might have been her. A short time later, she shuttered the ice-cream shop. She could have just walked away to ride the gravy train of the minority partnership at the arena. But she didn't. As she prepared to lock up, a call came from a dismayed local school that had scheduled an event at Scoop's. Would she come to the school, she was asked, bringing ice cream and talking to the kids the way she always did? She agreed. EVER SINCE, Ms. Anderson-Francisco has been selling her friend's ice cream to schools, day-care operations and vacation camps, bringing along a live program with every delivery: music, an art project, a trivia game or a dance contest, often involving friends recruited for the occasion. In exchange for a pittance of cash and the feeling that she's contributing, she has taken the show on the road. I met up with her recently on a sweltering afternoon at Winter Park Summer Fun Camp a few miles from here. Her entourage that day included a friend named Juanita-Mariela, a nightclub singer inand a double-bass player named Khalilah Muir. Eighty boisterous kids ages six to 12 were herded in an old cinder-block gymnasium. The bassist began slapping. ``You know what the blues are?'' the singer called out. Soon, the kids were singing scat, then three-part harmony. And as Ms. Anderson-Francisco went to set up the ice cream outdoors, the entire group was jubilantly swaying to a hit song they all seemed to know, by the soul artist Des`ree: You gotta be bad, You gotta be bold, You gotta be wiser. You gotta be hard, You gotta be tough, You gotta be stronger... . All I know: Love will save the day. With that, to peals of laughter, the singer yelled, ``Ice cream is next!''
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