Morland, Kansas Gets Its Grocery Store Back

Dec 1, 2013

Morland, Kansas

The grocery store in Morland, Kansas, reopened November 2 according to the Wichita Eagle.  

The store is owned by the Morland Community Foundation, and it’s been quite a process.  The community’s been planning, fund raising, as well as facing location challenges for five years.  

Money to purchase the building and replace the roof came form the sale of Moreland schools, which had been turned over to the foundation. 

Volunteers come in and help stock the shelves.  One of those volunteers is retired school teacher Don Acheson.  He’s been there every day since the store reopened.

"I'm not an employee," Acheson said, pausing from stocking the shelves. "I just volunteer. I come in every day, all day long."

He hurries to the front of the store to help sack groceries and carry them out to a waiting car, no matter the size of the purchase.  The grocery store is a part of his personal history.  He worked in the store back in the 1950s.

Acheson said keeping the store's just as critical (as reopening).

"You take the grocery store out of the community and you have a dying town," Acheson said. "People come in and the first thing they ask is 'Do you have a grocery store?' "

Business has been growing, as have supplies.

"The community's been waiting on this a long time," Ron Radcliffe, store manager said. "I think they'll support it."