Community appreciation ceremony will celebrate partnership and volunteers

MARIENVILLE – To recognize the partnership and volunteer commitment that made the shop possible, the PA Wilds Center for Entrepreneurship will hold a community appreciation day and official ribbon cutting celebration for the PA Wilds Conservation Shop in Marienville on August 30.

The shop, located in the former train depot building in Jenks Township in Forest County, is one of three total PA Wilds Conservation Shops. Operated by the nonprofit PA Wilds Center, these mission-driven gift shops help improve market access for rural entrepreneurs by sourcing 90 percent of their inventory from rural makers and businesses in the 13-county PA Wilds region, while also accomplishing other mission points.

The PA Wilds Conservation Shop in Marienville is currently open Wednesday-Sunday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. More information can be found at ShopThePAwilds.com/PA-Wilds-Conservation-Shops.

The PA Wilds Conservation Shop ribbon cutting and community appreciation ceremony will begin at 11 a.m. on Friday, August 30.

The Jenks Township Supervisors, local officials, and community members will be recognized for their efforts, and the official ribbon cutting will be held for the building. A catered lunch will be offered for guests, prepared by youth at the Abraxas Treatment Center in Marienville.

After the ribbon cutting and community appreciation ceremony portion of the event, guests are invited to network and explore the space from noon to 5 p.m. The PA Wilds Conservation Shop will be open for tours and shopping. Guests are encouraged to bring a bicycle to ride on the Knox and Kane Rail Trail, which runs directly past the shop building. A representative from the PA Department of Conservation and Natural Resouces (DCNR) will also provide a short educational workshop during the afternoon.

Jenks Township, which owns the train depot where the PA Wilds Conservation Shop is located in Forest County, has led a years-long effort to rehab the building as part of a local revitalization effort. The township began talking to the Center in 2020 about potentially operating a Conservation Shop at the location, given how the nonprofit stores are positioned to help advance local tourism development and revitalization efforts.

Libby Bloomquist, Sustainable Commerce Director at PA Wilds Center, acknowledged that the PA Wilds Conservation Shop owes a great deal of thanks to the community members. “This train depot could have fallen into disrepair and its history would have been lost,” she said. “However, volunteers worked hard to give the building new life and preserve this special place. We’re honored to be able to lease this building for the PA Wilds Conservation Shop, and we hope to connect visitors to the area in a meaningful way.”

Each new PA Wilds Conservation Shop has created a full-time store manager and a store keyholder position, as well as part-time jobs. The PA Wilds Center invests thousands of dollars a year buying inventory and value-added products directly from local businesses for its gift shops. The shops also intentionally pass foot traffic to other area businesses, visitor bureaus, and attractions.

Bloomquist noted that each PA Wilds Conservation Shop aims to truly be a part of the community where it is located. “Not only are most of these products sourced and designed inside our rural PA Wilds region, but we curate each shop’s inventory and offer visitors products that authentically reflect their unique experience in the town,” she said. “For example, the PA Wilds Conservation Shop in Marienville sells a variety of train-related items to go along with the train depot and Knox and Kane Rail Trail. It’s no secret that locals also love Bigfoot, so we make sure to always have plenty of Bigfoot products too, including a special t-shirt with a cartoon image of Bigfoot waiting at the Marienville train depot!”

There are currently more than 40 vendors supplying products for the Conservation Shops, a vast majority of whom are located in the PA Wilds and participate in the free Wilds Cooperative of PA network. The Wilds Cooperative seeks to connect and promote local businesses and is the entry point for those looking to tap into and leverage PA Wilds branding, marketing and commerce opportunities. Rural artisans interested in learning more about how to get their products into the shops are encouraged to visit WildsCoPA.org/join and apply.

The PA Wilds Conservation Shop at Leonard Harrison State Park also is a newly opened shop, which had its soft opening on June 20. A grand opening celebration will be held for the shop at Leonard Harrison in mid- to late-September. More information will be released closer to the event.

The flagship PA Wilds Conservation Shop, which opened in 2016, will continue to operate at Kinzua Bridge State Park, even as the Skywalk there undergoes maintenance off and on for the next three years starting later this year.

The funding to stand up the two new PA Wilds Conservation Shops came from a three-year Area Development grant from the Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC) to support the next phase of expansion for the work being done to help rural small businesses leverage the region’s growing outdoor recreation economy. The ARC funding will also help the Center create new licensing and professional development opportunities for rural entrepreneurs, support outreach efforts, and help underwrite key regional marketing projects to continue positioning the region as a premier outdoor recreation destination and create new economic opportunities.