By Bob Bonner | March 27, 2020 at 2:11 PM EDT – Updated March 27 at 11:30 PM
WILMINGTON, N.C. (WECT) – Small business may be getting some help from the Federal Government, but Two Sisters Bookery in Wilmington is doing what it can to survive on its own.
“Hope was in the air and spring was in the air and then this, so this is a really rough time for this to happen for us,” said Christine Greer.
Christine Greer is dealing with the fears of the coronavirus on two fronts, she’s a nurse but also the owner of the bookstore in the Cotton Exchange and in both of her roles she’s dealing with uncertainty.
“The hurricane, that was my first thing as a business owner that I dealt with but we knew when it was coming, we knew when it was going and we had tangible things we could do to help our neighbors, our fellow merchants and downtown and this is such an unknown,” Greer said.
To try and keep money coming in, for the first time since opening three years ago Christine is offering free book delivery to New Hanover, Brunswick, Pender and Onslow counties.
“We had no plans of doing this prior, and this has all evolved over the past week, so far I have two deliveries scheduled today, I had one yesterday,” Greer added. “This was very unplanned but getting some interest.”
Having already closed her doors to customers because of a lack of foot traffic, Christine has had to temporarily lay off her two employees who she’s still paying through the end of the month, but after that?
“That is a great question and I don’t know, I really don’t know, um, um, I don’t know,” Greer said. “I can’t do it for a year, I can’t do it for six months without digging into my retirement so this is real and everyone is a little frightened about what the future looks like and how long can we keep this up.”
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