The family-owned business, “Goodness on Main,” is one of downtown Leland’s newest store fronts to open in just the last month.
Ashley Suttmann is the driving force behind the new boutique located where the former “Green Goodness” store once stood on North Main Street. She plans to be open seven days a week, offering carefully curated and high quality items from home decor, kid toys, and women’s clothing, to hair care and beauty products, jewelry, bags and purses.
“I plan on being open yearround no matter what. I want people to be able to shop locally year-round, and there’s no reason we can’t do that with me working,” Suttmann said. “I truly have put my heart and soul into this and I really feel that people can feel that.”
The journey to becoming a business owner, acquiring the space, and making it into her own has been a long one. For the last decade, Suttmann has been working part-time as a sales associate for Peggy Gauthier at Green Goodness, learning how to run a store and about the different products customers liked.
“I’m a teacher, so Peggy was just awesome to work for and she was super flexible with me. I started working with her when I was pregnant with my daughter, Hadley, so my favorite thing was the baby clothes,” she said. “We still carry the same baby clothes that Peggy carried when I was pregnant with Hadley. And now she’s 11.”
At the same time, Suttmann has been a teacher for 14 years at her alma mater, Leland Public School. In her first seven years at the school, Suttmann taught fifth and sixth graders, and for the last seven, she’s been the first and second grade teacher. After more than a decade teaching in the district though, Suttmann is taking a bittersweet step back from working in education to focus full-time on her new business venture in the community.
“I’m so sad, but already ‘Goodness’ has become this little hangout for even my first graders through sixth graders. It’s so cute to see kids outside eating their ice cream cones… I know that kids will always be in my life,” she said. “We’ve been doing a lot of clump hugs where they (the kids) just cluster around me and we just hug. We’re enjoying every moment together and we’re going to live in the moment.”
This week, Suttmann said she’s planning to have her students stop by the shop to help plant 22 sunflowers outside the building that will grow all summer. The flowers will be in Suttmann’s view everyday at work, reminding her of the special bond she shares with the students at Leland.
“And it’s (the shop) right in Leland, so they’ll also be able to look at the sunflowers,” she said. “I said to them ‘if you drive by on the bus, you’ll see the sunflowers at the store and you’ll be able to know that Mrs. Suttmann is looking at those sunflowers.’” Goodness on Main’s core values are rooted “in the principles of warmth, connection, and authenticity,” and aims to foster a sense of community and belonging for customers and staff. Leading up to the shop’s opening on May 3 and till this day, Suttmann said she feels that there’s already been so many magical moments that have made the long process worth it.
“I had an experience happen while we were moving in that was magical. I was sick, I didn’t have time to be sick, and my girlfriend (Kristie Yaakoby) who had passed away — her couch is in this space and it’s a really special couch to all of us and everyone that knew her — her husband and my husband moved this couch in here,” she said. “It was very important to me to have couches in my store, and my store is tiny. Everyone criticized me for having couches in here, but I want people to sit in and chat in my store. Kristie healed me of this, I was not sick anymore, and I know it was her.”
To learn more about the boutique, people can visit Goodness on Main’s website goodnessonmain. com, or call 231-360-9557.
