A biting wind and steady rain sweeps the town of Clallam Bay, overflowing gutters and pounding the potholed gravel parking lots. More buildings are shuttered than open; sullen testaments to better days long gone.
The town’s main grocery store is now a boat repair shop surrounded by a chain link fence. The local fast food joint has been closed for some time, as have the gathering place restaurant and convenience store.
But one small building boasts a bright yellow paint job and a colorful sign: Sunsets West Co-op.
Sunshine and smiles
Inside, it’s all sunshine and smiles. Customers are greeted with hugs, and conversations range far beyond talk of produce and canned goods.
It’s warm, dry and smells of a vast array of spices and comfort foods.
The sunbeam at the center of this oasis is co-op co-director Jane Heilman, 61, an Australian transplant who, with her husband, Terry, has called Clallam Bay home for 10 years.
The couple had traveled “a world and a half” before coming to the Northwest more than a decade ago, following friends who had moved to Sequim and Vashon Island.
When they drove their motor home out to the coast of the North Olympic Peninsula and arrived at Clallam Bay, Heilman knew they had come “home.”
“We were spiritually driven to come to Clallam Bay,” she said. “I thought it was the prettiest place on Earth. I love the rain — I’m in heaven here.”
Time to move on
After spending a week on the coast, the couple went home to find their well was dry. For the woman who believes in looking for signs in little things, she saw this as a sign that the emotions tied up in that home were “dried up.”
It was time to move on.
The couple moved to the economically challenged area 50 miles west of Port Angeles on Highway 112 with no jobs and no plan, but that didn’t bother them.
“We don’t look for an income,” she said. “If we need something, it comes to us. The flow keeps going if you are doing the right thing.”
Heilman worked part time jobs and did “energy cleaning” for word-of-mouth customers.
As she explained it, “If you want to be healthy and happy, your world needs to be organized.”
Call it housekeeping for the soul.
She also used her time after arriving in Clallam Bay to get to know the community and take art classes.
The couple live in a small basement apartment below the co-op, which they share with a friendly, short-legged dog named Jack.
Lives simply
Their needs are simple, and Heilman is proud of the fact that she is “dressed for a dollar,” with all her clothes coming from the local thrift shop where everything costs a quarter.
“I used to love fashion and style,” she said.
She credits her husband of 20 years for helping her see beyond the material world.
“It’s been the best 20 years a person could ask for,” she said.
In the summer of 2007, Heilman helped to run a roadside market in her new community, selling fruits and vegetables from a wholesale distributor.
“It was the coldest summer on record,” she said, and it was not a huge financial success.
Still, it planted a seed. There was no major grocery store in Clallam Bay, and Heilman saw there was a need for one.
More importantly, her dreams told her she was supposed to start one — as a co-op.
“I woke up one morning and told Terry we were to start a co-op,” she said.
She had never run a co-op, but when she invited the community to a meeting to see if there was interest in starting one, she was surprised at the response.
“There was really high interest,” she said. “It was a shock.”
An opportunity
Heilman saw it as an opportunity to provide several valuable services to the community: a place for local farmers to have an outlet for their products, a place for community members to buy a variety of foods and supplies and a place to educate people about healthy eating.
In September 2009, Sunsets West officially became a nonprofit co-op, with 23 paying members. The Heilmans are the only workers so far; the memberships help to keep prices down and support operating costs.
The store is open to everyone, with no membership needed to shop there.
The co-op had planned to purchase and renovate the large grocery store in town that had been closed for four years, but another business bought it first.
Instead, the store opened in an old house just around the corner from the larger building.
The cozy store is stocked with a wide variety of goods for such a small space, and Heilman tries to please all tastes while still keeping true to her healthy-eating values.
“I stock marshmallows,” she said, pointing to several bags on a low shelf in the corner. “The tourists want them for ‘smores, but I don’t endorse them.”
Boxes of sugar-sweetened cereal are another concession to popular demand, but she draws the line at artificially colored cereals. There are no Lucky Charms to be found.
“I’m very much into health education,” she said. “People still have no connection that what they eat has anything to do with their health.”
Heilman said while the response from the community has generally been positive, some people still want a grocery store with aisles.
“But we have some customers who are so loyal to us because they don’t like big stores,” she said.
Produce is supplied by three community gardens, honey comes from a local apiary, and several livestock owners have expressed interest in contributing fresh beef, pork and lamb to the store.
Reskeining
In a back room of the store is another source of income and employment, eight yarn reskeining machines, which roll bulk yarn from Sundara Yarns in Sequim into smaller skeins.
“It’s a good job for retired people and students who need summer work,” Heilman said.
A sign on the wall reads “I am skeinfully employed.”
The reskeining business helped the Heilman’s earn the money to fund the co-op in the first place.
Odd match
While a co-op in a town that used to thrive on logging and fishing might seem an odd match, Heilman’s sunny personality overcomes the clouds of doubt.
She also had no hesitation at starting an ambitious new venture at 61.
“Numbers aren’t important to me,” she said. “I still feel like a 20-year-old, but I’m glad I’m not. There are too many lessons to learn at 20. Life is easy now.”
Heilman shared her secret to happiness: “I know the purpose of life, and I live a purposeful life,” she said.
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Features Editor Marcie Miller, who edits Peninsula Woman, can be reached at 360-417-3550 or at marcie.miller@peninsuladailynews.com.