The managers of the fair trade shop Aqua Altra take the initiative: soon the business will move to the heart of campo Santa Margherita
Between the bars, take-out pizzerias and the wine bars of campo Santa Margherita there will soon be a store that carries food and craft products. It’s an investment and a gamble: “We’re doing this because we want to continue believing in our beautiful Venice – explain Marcella and Valentina – and in the small but great community of citizens with whom we’ve come into contact in the past ten years of business. Are we worried? Yes, but trust in the future will overcome it”.
Fundraiser
Here is the challenge: the store is currently in a peripheral area of the campo (Carmini zone), inside a small space, and the expenses have now become unsustainable. It had reached the point that the cooperative that manages the business was ready to close it down. However, then the opportunity presented itself to move the shop to this new space, a former herb shop in the heart of the campo. It is an idea, they explain, “that is counter to the trend in Venice; to have a shop that is not connected to tourism that instead of closing is expanding. And it is doing so in one of the symbolic locations in the city, listening to our customers’ ideas”. To succeed some help is also required: necessary resources to up-fit the new spaces and expand their inventory, but most of all “to send a signal to the city”. The fundraiser can be found online, and the new store is scheduled to open in mid-June, where it will continue to promote a type of commerce that respects the producers and the environment.
Source: Venezia Today
Campaign For A Living Venice 