Author: Donna Ardizzoni

Do not forget to watch Chronicle on Wednesday December 6, 2017 at 7:30 channel 5

From the Salem News

Pauline’s Gifts

512 Essex Ave.

Gloucester, MA 01930

www.paulinesgifts.com

 Shops are also featured on upcoming Chronicle television show, December 6.

Good going Gloucester girl !!!!

 http://www.salemnews.com/news/local_news/road-to-success-scenic-byway-unites-woman-owned-businesses/article_65ce9a33-1c6e-5a6b-a730-7ded4d12ed41.html

SALEM — Instead of heading to the malls or shopping online this holiday season, you could head onto the Essex Coastal Scenic Byway to find that special something, and support some women-owned specialty shops along the way.

Last spring, a group of 10 women business owners banded together to create a brochure pointing out the locations of their shops along the scenic byway.

This grassroots effort came as a surprise to folks at the Essex National Heritage Commission, the Salem-based nonprofit that spearheaded the effort to designate the route from Lynn to Salisbury as a scenic byway. The designation is an economic development tool to guide to visitors and sightseers around the region.

The effort by the shops along a 10-mile stretch of the byway was the first time Essex Heritage had seen the roadway used as a marketing device since signs were installed for it in May 2016. For their efforts, the women received the Pioneer in Partnership award from Essex Heritage at its annual meeting this fall.

Kate Day, scenic project manager at Essex Heritage, said she was inspired by the women’s efforts to promote their businesses using the roadway as a guidepost.

The shopping brochure is a tool the shop owners use to urge customers to take a drive down the byway to visit all the women-owned shops on it. It markets shops that sell antiques, gifts, folk art, home decor, furniture, jewelry, flags, windsocks and pet supplies, among other things. It also establishes a connection among shops in neighboring communities that share the byway of routes 133/1A as a common thread.

“The women who own these specialty shops along the byway are driven by a personal passion that is evident in the success of their businesses,” said Johanne Cassia, owner of Olde Ipswich Shop and Gallery in Ipswich. “They provide unique products and services that benefit the economy and the vitality of their community.”

Katrina Haskell, owner of Essex Exchange in Essex, approached Cassia with the idea of putting together a brochure for some shops.

“We realized right away that the byway would be our connection,” Cassia said.

They spoke with other business owners and invited them to join.

“All the business owners jumped on board,” Cassia said, “and we are now collaborating special events together.”

About the byway

The state Legislature established the byway in the mid-2000s, and a corridor management plan in 2011 identified directional signs as a priority. The signs, all 175 of them, were installed in May 2016, paid for with state and federal grants.

The 90-mile byway starts in Lynn and heads north through Swampscott, Marblehead, Salem, Beverly, Manchester-by-the-Sea, Gloucester, Rockport, Essex, Ipswich, Rowley, Newbury, Newburyport and Salisbury.

The brochure features nine businesses and 10 women entrepreneurs along a 10-mile stretch of the byway, from Gloucester to Rowley.

They include Pauline’s Gifts, which Pauline Bresnahan opened in Gloucester in 1999. She and her husband, Glen, live in her childhood home next to the shop. As a little girl, she said, she always wanted to own the shop, so she purchased the property about 18 years ago.

At first, it was an outlet for her own decorative arts; she paints more than 100 mailboxes a year.

“The rest of the gifts grew from there,” she said. Flags are one of her biggest sellers.

“We want to support each other,” said Bresnahan when asked why it was important for women business owners to promote one another. “I know that working with the other women, even if they are younger women, we can teach a little bit or try to mentor some young women business people.”

Essex Bird Shop and Pet Supply in Essex is another of the shops on the byway. Susan Lufkin has owned the store with her sister, Shelly Nicastro, for nine years. They both knew the former owner of the business, Jane Perkins, and purchased the store from her.

Lufkin said she is a bookkeeper and has a degree in business, and her sister has a degree in sociology.

Lufkin said it is important for women business owners to support one another, “so that we are helping each other out with our thoughts and ideas.”

“It’s a wonderful project,” said Ann Orcutt, who owns two AnnTiques shops along the byway, one in Ipswich and one in Essex.

The women had already been referring each other to one another’s shops, but the initiative broadened their base of referrals, she said. The byway gave businesses along a 10-mile stretch a connection to one another.

“That was the key,” Orcutt said. “We are all on the byway.”–