Chest, so we had 30 days to relocate. I also had roughly 30 days left in a pregnancy, so we had to make the difficult decision to close.
COVID-19 has presented challenge after challenge, but by 2020, I was ready to attack each with everything I had. Despite constant demand for creativity, difficult decisions, and very, very long hours, I felt better equipped to face COVID than some of the challenges that preceded it. I’ m glad it didn’ t occur earlier in my tenure.
Finally, I spent three of the past seven years battling fertility issues, so it was hard to be fully engaged mentally through those times. It’ s hard to face challenges silently, so that background battle was significant.
Q: How did you keep The Toy Chest open during quarantine, when your doors were closed?
Hilary: The fact that I don’ t want a new job— and neither does my amazing manager, Emily Stone— pushed the two of us to do whatever we needed to do, for however long we needed to. I couldn’ t have managed it without her support, or my husband pulling more weight at home, the most dedicated returning staff I could have imagined, social media giving our new offerings visibility, and the fact that I went into the pandemic with a functioning retail website and solid knowledge of how it worked with my point-of-sale system. And I couldn’ t have paid my bills without the extreme support from our customers. New customers came out of the woodwork and remain loyal today. Multiple existing customers spent thousands of dollars with us last year and are now friends. Thousands of people shared our social media posts and sent their family and friends to us. I was regularly in tears thinking about the support we were getting from our local community and the larger Toy Chest community that had been building for 50 years.
Q: The lease on your second Bloomington location of The Toy Chest was set to renew during the pandemic, and you found yourself closing again. Is that something you’ ll revisit?
Hilary: At this point, I’ m more focused on mobile options. I really want to buy a multi-functional vehicle to make into a play-mobile that could take play concepts or the store itself on the road. We could use it when making free deliveries( a pandemic addition that we’ ll probably continue forever), to make pop-up stores for events, or load it with crafts, games, obstacle course equipment, etc. and go to a customer’ s location for parties. Q: What other dreams do you have for the store? Hilary: Seven years ago, I had jumped into the retail world, and it was hard to think of expansion in any manner other than more retail or manufacturing. Ideas such as opening play spaces, offering courses to teach parents the importance of play, and expanding through programs pushed from our online store are what I spend more time on now. We’ ll always have the Nashville store, but expansion might not mean more brick and mortar.
Q: What makes you most proud, reflecting on your time with The Toy Chest?
Hilary: The relationship we’ ve built with our customers and our community. There have been moments when we have had to make tough decisions, take stands on controversial situations, and ask our customers for support. I know now that our employees are a very strong unit and that our customers are here for us, believe in what we have to offer, and want to see us succeed. •
Sept./ Oct. 2021 • Our Brown County 55