Garden City: Cornerstone business changes with the community

story by Courtney Sexton | photo by Albert YeeWhen Bill Green started Primex Garden Center in 1943, his business was predominantly a wholesale agricultural distributor, serving farmers in then-rural Glenside, Pa.  Seventy years later, Green’s grandson, David, his wife Joan, and their son-in-law Danny are running a different kind of business at Primex, but one that’s proven to be as equally important to the community.

Click to read more ...

Basket Case: Local food products' longstanding champion

story by Courtney Sexton | photo by Albert YeeWhen you think of local food, fruits, vegetables, dairy and meat probably come to mind first. But what about the family-run, small scale packaged food businesses that call Philadelphia home? For 25 years, The Pennsylvania General Store at the Reading Terminal Market has been the one-stop shop for buying these regional treats.

Click to read more ...

Above the Fold: Sophisticated technology and inspired employees power a laundry revolution

Story by Molly O'Neill l Photos by Albert Yee ON A BRISK FRIDAY AFTERNOON, Gabriel Mandujano parks his bicycle and enters a large, clean laundromat at 48th and Pine. Three women in neon green Wash Cycle Laundry t-shirts greet him enthusiastically, though their hands never stop sorting socks and folding sheets. He checks in with each employee, taking a moment to help fold while he talks, then walks into a back room, where a computer system is tracking bags of clothing and linens from pickup to delivery. He stops briefly to answer a phone call then hops back on his bike to continue his rounds to two other facilities. After that, it’s back to the office at 17th and Arch to handle paperwork, bookkeeping and the other facets of a blossoming small business.

Click to read more ...

Team Sustainable: Career Wardrobe and Wash Cycle Laundry announce partnership

Philadelphia’s own Career Wardrobe and Wash Cycle Laundry have teamed up to make donating gently used women’s business clothing even easier—and greener. 

On Friday, November 18, anyone with women’s clothing to donate can schedule a free pick-up with the sustainable, bike-pick up laundry service.

Donated items and accessories will be delivered to the Career Wardrobe offices to be sorted into either interview-appropriate clothing for clients or ensembles to be sold at The Wardrobe Boutique, where ALL proceeds benefit the nonprofit. Career Wardrobe will provide donors with a tax receipt for their contributions. Any new Wash Cycle customers who sign up from the November 18 event will receive a 25 percent discount on their first use of the laundry service.

While Friday is the only day offering free services to anyone, the partnership will continue, allowing Wash Cycle Laundry customers to donate directly to Career Wardrobe when their laundry is picked up. The laundry service will even provide garment and accessory bags for delivery to Career Wardrobe’s office. 

If you do your own laundry, rather than send it out, donations can be made to Career Wardrobe at their office (12^th and Chestnut Sts.), The Wardrobe Boutique (19^th and Spring Garden Sts.), and their two new drop-off locations: Susquehanna Bank (1845 Walnut St.) and The Residences at Dockside (717 South Columbus Blvd.)

To schedule a free pickup on November 18, visit the Wash Cycle Laundry website. 

- Anna Louise Neiger

Banding Together: Cutting-edge architectural salvage company Greensaw has taken the bold step of becoming an employee-owned co-op. Will the risky move pay off?

Can one imagine an economy in which labor hires capital? Where workers have a legal right to the profits and legal responsibility for the liabilities because they are the owners, where workers jointly manage the firm and themselves in a democratic fashion?

—William Greider, national correspondent for The Nation, in his introduction to The Real World of Employee Ownership

On a blustering snowy weekend in late January, a group of men and women gathered in front of a bedsheet and projector in a timber-framed cabin in Eagles Mere, Pa., to discuss how to become a cooperatively owned business. In between breaks for venison stew, toboggan sledding and heating snow for water, those in attendance heard impassioned speeches about governance and power. Debates over fairness, dignity, and responsibility flared and simmered. A sample policy and procedures manual was presented and picked apart as each person was asked to truly consider Greider’s question.

Click to read more ...