Athlone organic store gets behind community street party

It's Heritage Week and Lowe and Co. organic store on the westside of Athlone is celebrating small independent shops and businesses!

The shop will be supporting the upcoming community Street Party event next Sunday, August 20th from 3pm to 5pm in Connaught Street with lemonade and lemon cake, traditional music, local art and crafts including this amazing watercolour (above) by @karajrichardson, basket-weaving, pottery and lovely seasonal harvest produce.

The Athlone Apples group will come along with the apple press if anyone has any early apples they'd like to bring for juicing, and 20 apple trees have been allocated to a spot off Connaught Street where an orchard once stood.

Lowe and Co. supports small shops and we are rooting for them in this rapidly changing society where every household item, piece of clothing and even food or ingredient can be purchased online.

The shop says they love the interaction between a shopkeeper and a customer, even if it's just to have a moan about the weather, it never gets old and it's usually optimistic.

Small shops are life-lines in a community, they provide so much more than a product or a service and this is why it is important to encourage new businesses and support them.

Lynda McFarland, who runs Lowe and Co, said is passionated about the shop local message. "There was an item I was looking for recently and I realised the only place I could now purchase it from was Amazon, five years ago there were two shops in Athlone that would have supplied it but they have both since closed.

"The only way we can prevent this from happening further is by loving local; towns need shops and shops need support," she said.

She is encouraging everyone to get behind the Connaught Street community street party on Sunday, August 20 from 3pm to 5pm.

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