Staff of Life in Shawano under new ownership

Mother-daughter team providing community with Christian gifts, health food items
By: 
Lee Pulaski
City Editor

The Staff of Life store, a place for people to find health food and Christian gifts, is continuing to flourish under new ownership, even as one of the owners is facing an additional challenge.

Holly Montoure and her daughter, Miranda Hoyer, took ownership of Staff of Life on July 1. For Montoure, it was an opportunity to continue to serve her faith after being a Catholic school teacher for a number of years.

“I liked the Christian part of it,” Montoure said. “The health food was just a bonus.”

Montoure learned in April that she has cancer, and having the health food available would be a help to her as she’s going through treatment. She said it was a way to immerse herself in becoming healthier.

“I realized when I was diagnosed that life is too short to stick to one thing,” Montoure said. “I was teaching at the time, and I thought it was a good investment in my retirement and my daughter’s future. She’s only 24 and owns a business that she can keep going in this community, a community that needs it.”

She noted that there’s no other place in Shawano to buy baptism cards. The same goes for crucifixes.

“I just felt it was very important to supply the churches,” Montoure said. “It’s important to keep our faith alive, especially in these times.”

The need has been evident in the last three months as the two women and other members of the family have been busy running the store.

“It started out kind of slow, and we weren’t sure what we doing,” Montoure said. “As we’re learning more about what to do and what to order and what customers want and what the community needs, it’s crazy. We’re selling as fast as we’re ordering.”

Not only are they selling out, but they’re growing, too. There has been some rearranging as the new owners determine what to do to expand.

“We moved it all around and gave it a fresh face,” Hoyer said. “There’s only one thing that’s in the exact same space since we’ve been here, and that’s the cooler. Everything else has been moved, cleaned, dusted and shifted around.”

As Christmas draws closer, Montoure and Hoyer are already breaking out decorations and preparing to have plenty of gift items available. Of course, there are plenty of other things people are looking for prior to the holiday rush.

“We have a lot of people coming in looking for different things,” Hoyer said. “It’s not just supplements. We had a load of baptismal gifts on a Friday, and by the end of the day Saturday, they were all gone.”

There are a number of customer who call about healthy items like gluten-free flour, and they tend to be surprised when Hoyer or Montoure let them know that they have it. Some of the items can’t even be bought online, according to Hoyer.

“If we know Aldi’s carries it or Walmart carries it, we can’t compete,” Hoyer said. “Let them carry it, and we’ll get things in that people are looking for.”

Hoyer and Montoure are planning to incorporate other things into the store, like an expanded pet items section and a children’s section so Sunday school and parochial school teachers can get their needed items without having to travel to Green Bay or another city.

“The goal is to grow so big that we eventually grow out of this space,” Montoure said. “It already looks like we’re getting kind of tight. Maybe in future years, we’ll expand to other towns — Clintonville, Bonduel.”


lpulaski@newmedia-wi.com