New Community Born from the Ashes

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PHOTO CREDIT: Evan Casey

Sherman Phoenix 1

The Sherman Phoenix was born out of the ashes of the Sherman uprising in 2016. Director of programming and events Jan Anderson moved to Milwaukee in order to help grow the collective of small businesses, with its focus on building community and promoting unity. Off the Cuff caught up with Anderson to find out how the Sherman Phoenix is responding to COVID-19 and the recent civil unrest across the nation. 

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Photo courtesy of Sherman Phoenix

Director of programming and events for Sherman Phoenix, Jan Anderson

How has the Sherman Phoenix responded to COVID-19? Can you touch on if you are creating policy as a collective or individual business?

Well, let’s work backwards with your question. What we are doing? We are working collectively in our response to COVID-19 for all of our businesses. We do understand that each business has its own means of operations but we wanted to make it a cohesive effort in making sure that we have the policy and procedures in place.

The guidelines that we have taken from the CDC, we’ve taken from the governor, we’ve taken from the state and local officials, and put together practices to include all the different kinds of businesses based on the mandates. I know that we have different businesses: the salon, the nail salon, the massage therapy. All of those opened first so we had particular guidelines to make sure that we made sure all of them had in place. Then, we trickled down to our restaurants making sure that they had their guidelines in place. 

We wanted to make sure that everybody was on the same page. We reduced the hours of the building collectively. We made sure that everybody was on the same page with that. Just making sure we are on this journey together and not relying so much on the individual businesses to be able to do it on their own. We did ask that they did have requirement that they had available to their employees and for their tenants for their staff and that they shared it with us so collectively we made sure that we gave them those guidelines and they can make any individual protocols per that. 

Collectively, in our response to COVID-19, like I said before, we reduced our hours. We are now open from Tuesday through Friday from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. and on Saturdays 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. We have designated curbside parking in our parking lot, and we encourage curbside and takeout. We also have a lovely ambassador in our building as we welcome people in. We are not necessarily following the state or the government rules as far as opening up our building to 25% capacity. We wanted to play things a little more concisely. Due to the nature of the building, everybody who comes in we are loving each other, we are hugging each other and we are pretty much a family-oriented building just by nature, so we wanted to make sure that we had those precautionary measures in place.

With that ambassador welcoming people at the door making sure that they have masks. We have the signage in place making sure that people maintain social distancing. We have those markers on the floor. Sings posted around to wear masks. We have hand sanitizer stations posted throughout the building, so we are just making sure that we have all of those protocols in place as we welcome people. We are doing things in phases like right now we still don’t allow people to come inside and sit. That is unavailable right now. We really are just encouraging curbside and takeout orders right now. In all honesty, everybody is excited and ready to open, but some people are still afraid. There is still some fear. We have to be responsible. We have to understand that and take that into consideration. All the vendors aren’t open. They are taking their time, but the ones that have decided to be open right now make sure that their safety is a major concern in terms of our cleaning schedule, making sure we have all those protocols in place, making sure that the experience of the Sherman Phoenix is still a welcoming experience. We are just really focusing on those safety precautions and those safety measures. 

How has COVID-19 effected the business located within the Sherman Phoenix? 

What COVID-19 has adapted businesses to do is to pivot. Because we were closed for some time, a lot of businesses had to figure out how can we survive, how can we still be in the forefront of our customers’ minds.  A lot of them had to pivot their businesses. Like I said before, a lot of them had to just go to curbside and takeout only, but for instance Funky Fresh Spring Rolls they’ve adopted a new product, which is frozen spring rolls, something they didn’t have before.

Now with a 24-hour advanced notice, you can have an order of frozen spring rolls. He has a plethora of flavors that he didn’t have before, not being able to have so many concoctions readily available to cook and hot. They have a lot more options available for delivery. We have our counseling services. They have been able to pivot and do telahelp services. Confectionatly Yours, she moved to a slice and bake model, so she is selling her cookie dough. She also delivered thousands of cookies to health care heroes. It was highlighted on TMJ-4, on the news. She did that for most of the time we were closed and she is still doing that now. Vibez Creative Space—we able to do home paint kits delivered to your door. A lot of the tenants had to pivot their business so they could still make money and [still] connect with their costumers. I think switching to focusing on more of an online model made it so that we were able to connect with your customers in a more intimate way. I think a lot of them are seeing their businesses benefit from that. 

Switching gears here, Is there anything you would like to say to the communities who recently experienced violent unrest due to racial injustice? 

What I would like to say is that I know that’s unfortunate to have to experience that it has been going on for a long time, and the only way to eradicate that is for us to come together. We are just fortunate that we have the love and support of a community that has seen the positive results of civil unrest that has happened in a community. That happened with the Sherman community in 2016, and the community came together and said, “You know that is not going to be the plight of our community. We are going to switch this thing around and make it positive.” So, something positive can come from it. It just takes the right community leader. It takes the right community and for people in your circle to come together and make a decision that there is something positive that can come out of it, and Sherman Phoenix is shining example of that. 

We are just so thankful for the support that we get. Everyone, please continue to support black businesses, please support small businesses it is the heart of America. Between COVID and the civil unrest, everyone is suffering, but I think if we all stop for a minute and realize that we are all in this together, that we can all survive and make it together. 

Can you talk about the relationship between promoting black entrepreneurship and promotion justice? 

That is very important. Which is the importance around Sherman Phoenix. The community wanted to see something positive and one of those things was having an entrepreneur hub. A building that has a majority business own and operated by African Americans in a community that has been hit hard by a lot of civil unrest a lot of injustice and just a lot of economic turmoil, jobs leaving. When the jobs are leaving people are idle as well. A lot of crime and civil unrest kind of boil together. The fact that we wanted to have this kind of hub to show that we are not all here chilling and robbing each other. We are smart. Educated. We have dreams. We have businesses. Let’s all foster them together. 

Having all those businesses inside we are a beacon of hope for a lot of people who believe that it is possible. A lot of kids come and they want to be in the Sherman Phoenix because seeing an African American thriving—having the support of their community, being proud of the product and the service that you are able to offer, that’s very important. Especially, in a time of unrest, because a lot of black businesses are not highlighted. A lot of us, we don’t get the notoriety that a lot of our counterparts do. The fact that all of this is happening right now is just shinning a light on the gifts, products and services that we do have, that we do provide America. I just believe that if everyone puts away the prejudice and the biases, that we can see we all have goods and services, that we can all exchange information, we can all learn from each other as long as we get to know another.

Sherman Phoenix fosters that entrepreneurship, they foster that sense of community no matter what color you are. Because all though we do have a lot of businesses inside that are owned and operated by African Americans, we do have some Hispanics, we do have some Caucasians. It is a mixing pot and we are all working and doing this and building and growing together.