Seven Stories bookstore, Shawnee, Kan., has launched a $27,000 GoFundMe campaign to save the store now that the building is being sold, KMBC reported. Fifteen-year-old owner Halley Vincent opened the shop two years ago and moved to the current space last fall. More than $12,000 has been raised thus far to help finance a move to a new space.
"This is also a really old building," Vincent said. "In the past 82 years, it's never changed ownership until now. So that was pretty shocking.... Customers were depending on me being here longer. It was devastating. There were tears involved."
On the GoFundMe page, Vincent wrote: "Thanks to all our patrons, Seven Stories has been thriving! However, Houston, we DO have a problem.... I learned that the building Seven Stories currently calls home would be sold via text message a couple months ago. I then learned last month that it was under contract and I write this now just one day away from the closing of the sale. After 80 years of continual and stable ownership, I now find myself in the unenviable position that every business with a lease agreement fears, my store is in need to relocate."
The funding will be used for two months rent on the new space, more bookcases, electrician expenses, ceiling and flooring improvements, painting, growing/extending store inventory, printing new promo materials (business cards, bookmarks, stickers), and creating new signage for the space.
Although Vincent cannot disclose where the new location will be yet, she noted that she "will once again expand slightly to better accommodate the range of inventory people expect and love from Seven Stories. It will give more breathing room for events, book clubs, and affinity groups that meet in our store."