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Buying Gifts That Help Your Neighbors
Researched and Written by Janine Weins
(Posted 11/22/06)

According to the National Retail Federation, holiday sales are expected to exceed $450 billion this year. A large portion of those sales will be made at retail stores with corporate offices far from Northern New England. Much of the $12 billion that Wal*Mart expects shoppers to spend at its stores will flow to corporate headquarters in Bentonville, Arkansas.

I am doing much of my holiday shopping locally, some at South End Market in Bradford and Chapman's in Fairlee. South End Market is owned and operated by Calista Chapman Diane. Chapman's is owned and operated by Aletta Chapman Traendly. Calista and Aletta are sisters. They seem to have inherited a commitment to help others from their grandfather, W. E. Chapman, who, during the depression, supported the First and Second Antarctic Expeditions by shipping medication from Chapman's Drug Store in Fairlee to Admiral Byrd.

The South End Market at 45 South Main Street and Chapman's on Route 5 are in old buildings packed with as much history and character as they are with items for sale. At the South End Market, handmade wooden shelves run from floor to ceiling, little shelves hold little things—small jars of Ethiopian condiments made in Vermont by an Ethiopian living in New Hampshire, jars of spices, and other small items such as soap. Big shelves are filled with jugs of maple syrup, bags of flour, and jars of oils. Those who shop at Chapman's share the well-worn aisles with the most beautiful large stuffed animals I have seen since I visited F. A. O. Schwartz in New York City.

South End Market carries two kinds of products: healthy organic foods that would have been found in a fine old-time New England market, and an eclectic collection of useful and often unique items that Calista and her customers enjoy. The food products include antibiotic/hormone-free meats, fresh local organic vegetables, grains, beans, herbs, free-trade coffee, organic teas, and local organic dairy products including a variety of exceptional cheeses. The last time I purchased eggs at South End the Free Range dozen included three bluish green eggs, four brown eggs, and five white eggs. White eggs come from white chickens, brown eggs from brown chickens, and the colored eggs from the colorful rare breed chickens. The farmer who supplied the dozen I bought had an integrated flock.

The non-food items at South End Market include knit hats, hand-dipped bees wax candles, locally made soaps, vitamins, supplements such as the Noni Juice I buy for my cats, cosmetics, herbal bath salts such as Batherapy which I like to put in my tub after a day working in the garden, calendars including a moon calendar I got for my college roommate as a Christmas gift, and fabrics imported from India because Calista believes the sale of the fabrics will help the women of India.

Chapman's is like a mini department store. Some think of Chapman's as the best wine store in the upper Connecticut River Valley—I think they are right. Their fine wines are located to the left of the entrance. When I mentioned Chapman's to a friend who was hunting on my property he said, "You mean the store that sells fishing gear and Topo maps." The maps, as well as other hunting and fishing items, are located in the addition on the south side of the old Chapman Drug Store building. Regular guests at Lake Morey Resort often stop at Chapman's to buy hand-crafted jewelry. The jewelry case is in front of the main entrance. Because of the extensive collection of wood toys and the large number of stuffed animals, grandparents can find nostalgic gifts they enjoy giving. Chapman's has the finest selection of maple products I have seen anywhere, maple syrup in containers of different sizes and shapes, maple candies, maple cream, maple leaves, maple sugar, and maple sugar men, who, when I was a kid, were my favorite maple sugar candy shape.

Those who do their holiday shopping in the small towns in the Connecticut River Valley have an opportunity to find unique high-quality handmade gifts that cannot be found at stores like Wal*Mart, that, because of their size, must order thousands and thousands of almost every item they sell. What I, as a residence of Northern New England, appreciate most about those who shop locally is that their dollars support and sustain the community. Dollars spent at South End Market and Chapman's help to maintain old historic buildings, allow chicken farmers to keep their integrated free-range flocks, allow families to maintain sugar groves, and in dozens of other ways help preserve the look, feel, and people in this very special part of the world.

The South End Market in Bradford, Vermont. The Waitsville building next door is currently used for storage but soon the South End Market may expand into the space.		Handmade hats hang from the corner post of stocked shelves at the South End Market.
Chapman's on Route 5 in Fairlee, Vermont. For most of the 20th Century the building was the Chapman's Drug Store. Now that the store is managed by the third generation of Chapmans it has become, what it was in the 1870s and 1880s, a general store.		The wine display at Chapman's.