A community is made up of the people who live in it--the individuals who grow up there, create families, start businesses, make the houses into homes, pay taxes, vote, belong to churches and community organizations, volunteer, celebrate, send their children to school (or attend schools themselves), grow old, and finally are buried in cemeteries not many miles from where they lived. Communities are defined by their people.

But underneath all these people, forming a foundation and a bedrock for the lives they build, are certain institutions. Without these, a cluster of homes and commercial buildings isn't really a "community." It's just a neighborhood.

A school--at the very least, an elementary school, and preferably a whole school system--is one of these institutions. So is the local post office, and the public library. So is local government--a town hall, an administration of some kind, be it a Town Manager, Board of Selectmen, a Mayor, or what have you.

The Police Department. The Fire Department. There are towns with no police departments of their own; they call the State Police or the county sheriff when law enforcement is needed. But such towns lack something; they feel like shaky outliers on the frontiers of civilization, places that aren't quite safe.

But as much as these, certain businesses are also fundamental to the health of a community. One of these, perhaps the most important one, is a grocery store.

It's true that small communities share resources, when they don't have enough population (and a big enough tax base) to support some services all on their own. School districts regionalize; towns pool together for ambulance services. This is common.

But a grocery store is different. It's the one kind of business that everyone uses and needs, on a regular basis. It's a gathering place, where people meet and chat together. It's a place to post flyers and business cards and news. It's a place where those without bank accounts can cash checks, where people can buy not only food but paper goods, notions, sundries, small hardware, pet supplies, cleaning supplies, paperback books and periodicals.

There is no substitute for the local grocery store. It is sui generis, a singularity, a place that defines and is defined by the community it serves.

Many small communities that are far away from big stores, or whose residents can't easily get to those stores, support small local groceries. The Ashby Market has been operating in Ashby, Massachusetts for decades. Sonny's Market opened last year in New Ipswich, New Hampshire--in the middle of the pandemic. These stores thrive where larger stores would not because they're compact and yet comprehensive in their offerings.

Businesses (like the former IGA) fail for complicated reasons, and unfortunately a lot of those reasons have much more to do with poor management and bad decisions by the owners than with external circumstances. I've been very impressed with the resiliance and creativity of our local Winchendon business owners during this extremely difficult year. Almost none of our businesses have been lost, and all of our eateries have stayed afloat. I don't know how they've done it, but they have. Every one of our Winchendon businesses deserves standing ovations and awards, seriously! With that kind of can-do spirit here, do I think a small grocery store could flourish in Winchendon? Absolutely!

But the store has to sell what people truly need. HEAL Winchendon has been working for three years on "increasing access to healthy food in Winchendon," joined by town organizations like the Senior Center and the Winchendon CAC. The trouble is...by "healthy food" we meant "fresh produce," and we're now drowning in fresh produce. The CAC literally can't give away all the fresh produce it has available. They have to give the leftovers to farmers to feed to their livestock. Who knows how much of the fresh produce residents take home ends up in the trash.

A grocery store provides much more than simply fresh food--indeed, more than just food. A small town grocery store is more like an old time general store than a supermarket. It's a social anchor for a community. Why does everyone miss the old IGA so much? It's not because they long for the store brand merchandize or the prices.

If we want a grocery store in Winchendon, we need to agree that it's a realistic and possible goal, then set our minds to manifesting that goal. If there are entrepreneurs ready to take up the challenge, we can help them out in many ways, including financial. This is where initiatives like HEAL Winchendon can really help. A community that loses its grocery store has lost a piece of its heart. We need the heart of our town to be made whole again.

Inanna Arthen