Mr. Crenshaw has owned and operated the store beside St. Peter’s for over 40 years.  Everybody in the neighborhood knows Crenshaw’s.  If you want to tell someone where the church is, tell them next to Crenshaw’s.

Mr. Crenshaw and I started talking about employment last week when I went over to pick up some peanuts and Gatorade as a snack.  He talked about decades ago when there were a lot of factory jobs in Shockoe Bottom and Southside.  People went down and worked in the factories.  Now those jobs aren’t here anymore.  He said food stamps and all are a relatively recent thing here.

He said people have been hard hit by the economic downturn.  We started brainstorming ideas about how to address employment up here.  What kind of factory would work here?

He suggested something to do with food, because people always need food even when they cannot afford other things.  Something to think about…