Jul 07, 2020 Our Store Groceries and More

While the affects of the Covid-19 pandemic keep ebbing and flowing, our community of Stonington continues to persevere. Summer is well underway and local businesses and restaurants are doing everything they can to provide the best services possible while keeping their patrons safe and happy.

This 4th of July weekend, Stonington was pleased to welcome a new business to the Velvet Mill, Our Store Groceries & More. A fully stocked grocery and convenience store, open Tuesday thru Sunday, 8:00 am to 6:00 pm. While owners, Cris and Jenny Aguilar say that this is a temporary schedule, they look forward to adapt as the business grows and people get to know them. The Aguilar family matriarch, Jenny was interviewed via email, and here was our conversation.

Tell me about your family.

We are 5 in our family: Cris, my husband, my oldest son Alejandro, my daughter Fernanda (the middle child), and Alvaro, the youngest. We have 2 pets: Roofus, a 5-year old Redbone Coonhound and Pietro, our hamster. I met my husband when we were 5 years old. We reacquainted 5 years ago via Facebook and started a long-distance relationship. Then we got married in 2017.

Are you from Stonington? If not, when did you move here.

I have been in Stonington since 2016. I moved from Lima, Peru after meeting my husband.

Tell me about where you grew up and what your family life was like.

I was born and raised in Lima, Peru. I am the third child of 4 children. My father was a doctor and my mother was a nurse. I studied in Lima and majored in business and worked for a long time at a transnational insurance company, which is headquartered in Spain (Mapfre). I made it all the way up to be a director of operations for one of its most successful branches. I excelled in people management, sales goals, and human capital development. Concurrently, I ran my own business, a flower shop up until the time I moved to the States.

What have been the biggest challenges for you personally during this Covid-19 time?

During the COVID, my biggest challenge has been to keep my family united. I think that this is when I have valued the work that teachers do. From having kids at home on evenings and weekends to have them 24/7 and keep them connected with school, made me appreciate the huge task their teachers accomplish with them. To juggle this with being locked in the house was the challenge. To set up and organize chores to keep them busy and lower their stress was an immense task.

What led you to opening this business?

First, I lost my job, a job that I enjoyed. I had never been furloughed of any job, especially due to a pandemic. It took time to process. Second, to give my children a common goal; something we can work towards, with goals to achieve. During their free time, they helped with the design, painting, assembling, thus giving them a vision for the future, regardless of their age, so as young as they are for them to envision having something of their own. I also saw the need to deliver groceries to seniors who did not and do not feel comfortable going out or were prevented from shopping for themselves by themselves. I saw a way to help them with that.

How did you meet Nicole Jones and become acquainted with Stonington Feeds Stonington?

Nicole and her husband are our landlords. During one of her visits to the house I showed her the store project. She is a person that acknowledges hard work and encourages small entrepreneurs. Without knowing me too much she decided to support me. When she told me about Stonington Feeds Stonington, it validated all the effort I put into the business and I felt that my hard word was being recognized. It also provided me with a direct and tangible way of how to support the surrounding community.

How would your friends and acquaintances describe you?

As a very honest person, direct, clear, and precise. Perhaps a bit too bold; but being so has helped me discern among my acquaintances who is loyal and who is not. It has proved to be a good filter. They see me as strong and passionate with what I like, want, and/or believe in.

What would you do differently if you had the chance?

Maybe to have moved when I was younger. Now I see it in my children. I would have loved to study business here. Having been successful as a woman, and a single mother, in Peru, a Third World Country, I think I would have achieved more and bigger things here in the States. So now I am doing it for my children, because they are going to have many more and better opportunities here.

What are your hopes and dreams for your new business in the coming year?

I hope for it to grow, for people to get to know it, to get to know us, to be recognized as a place where we provide a service, a solution that makes their lives easier. For them to see us as a group of people who want to add value. And for the business to be financially strong.