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I’m pleased.”
Davis said his parents both
were collectors, which makes for plenty of items to sell at the rummage sales he attends.
“I’ll be dead before I get rid of all of this,” he said with a laugh. “But at least I’m liv- ing \[in their home\] now, so it’s a little bit easier for me to go through stuff.”
A little more than half the vendor booths were covered and remained on G Street. One of those booths was the Monte Vista School plant stand.
Eric Garcia, a teacher at the school, said the booth was offering plants with the majority being tomatoes and squash. He said proceeds go to buy more seeds and fertilizer for the school plant program.
“We want to plant the seeds so we can keep grow- ing,” he said.
One other outdoor Reed- ley event also went on de- spite the rain. The annual Plant Give and Take event at the First United Methodist Church parking lot began dur- ing a light rain and continued through a heavier downpour.
Diana Bulls with First United Methodist Church said the turnout and inventory was
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scribed were e-commerce, technology and data, and a demographic shift in which millennials now are officially the largest segment of the U.S. population.
“Millennials are very price con- scious, and they love bargains,” Bosland said, citing a report that said millenni- als hunt for deals and clip coupons twice as much as baby boomers. “Millennials crave unique and authentic experiences from the goods and services that they purchase.
“As much as millennials and \[Gen- eration Z\] have the reputation for being attached to their phones, only 16 percent make the majority of their purchases on- line. The remaining 84 percent prefer to shop in physical stores.”
Bosland — a native of Trinidad and Tobago who built a career there in tour- ism development and marketing before coming to California — said that e-com- merce still is in the infancy stage. She said in 2016 online shopping represented just 10 percent of retail sales. Of that
Jon Earnest / The Exponent
John Felipe with the Cruising for Jesus team and Team DOS ties a purple ribbon on a light pole on G Street across from Pioneer Park on April 7 during the Reedley Relay for Life’“Paint the Town Purple” activity. This is the first year Cruising for Jesus has a fun- draising team in the Relay for Life event.
The Reedley Exponent A8 Thursday, April 12, 2018
Jon Earnest / The Exponent
Lillie Valencia holds a shirt for a customer to inspect at her booth at the Reedley Rummage Sale on April 7 in downtown Reedley. About 20 vendor booths were operating during the annual event, which was plagued by rain throughout the morning.
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do.”
Marissa said her special-
ist at Stanford was Dr. Elisa- beth Diver.
“She was amazing. When she came in, she looked at me and said ‘You’re too young to have this, but this is what we’re going to do,’” Marissa said. She pushed to have the surgery as soon as possible.
Marissa said the first chemotherapy treatment was intense, but she said she was asleep 75 percent of the time. She credited her 25-year-old brother, Brandon, with helping her through the first treatment and her longtime fear of IVs in her arm.
“My brother said ‘If you cry, your reputation is go- ing to be ruined here,’” she said with a laugh. “He said, ‘We’re going to have to find a new infusion center. Ma- rissa, you can’t cry. We have a reputation to uphold.’”
With Brandon’s encour- agement and a firm holding of hands, Marissa made it through the first treatments. She said what was supposed to be four hours turned into about nine hours, so she understandably was tired when the treatments were finished.
Marissa’s chemotherapy treatments are spaced every 21 days. She returns to Fres- no for the second round on
April 26 before a final round of chemotherapy on May 17. “We’re hoping that’s it. Not everyone experiences all the side effects,” she said. “Since I’m young and have my age helping me, they’re saying I shouldn’t experience all of it, but I should experience at least
75 percent of it.”
Marissa said her father
also encourages her, telling her this battle is like a “walk in the park” compared to a freak accident she suffered at age 11. She fell on cement while running at a friend’s house and had skin torn from her legs. The fall was so severe that she actually had to learn to walk again.
“I had to have three sur- geries and one skin graft,” she said. “It looks like a shark bite. I think it’s pretty cool.”
Marissa said the encour- agement of her parents and brother have been invalu- able. She said watching Brandon play recreational sports has been therapeutic for her.
“He’s been one of the biggest supporters, next to my mom and dad,” she said. “And so have my friends.”
Marissa said she is look- ing forward to attending Relay for Life events this weekend. She is ready for the challenges that the fu- ture holds.
“I’m only 24. I really don’t plan on this being my last year,” she said.
down slightly because of the rain. She said a number of plants still were exchanged during the event.
Heavy rain in Orange
Cove forced the cancella- tion of the Blossom Festival and parade, according to or- ganizer Jess Chambers. He said the next scheduled event
hosted by the Orange Cove Area Chamber of Commerce is the “Cruisin’ to the Cove” car show on Saturday, May 12.
figure, just 4 percent came from online giant Amazon.
“E-commerce isn’t going to go away anytime soon. But, the bright news is that neither will physical retail,” she said.
What could be waning is actual retail jobs. Bosland said that a Cornerstone Capital report predicts that 6 million to 7.5 million retail jobs will be lost as au- tomation technology becomes fully inte- grated into the industry. She used as an example how McDonald’s fast food res- taurants are experimenting with self- serve kiosks.
The demographic shift toward the millennial shopper also shows that the group on average has 50 percent fewer assets and earns 20 percent less than their similar age group in 1989.
During a review of the retail trends in Fresno County, Bosland said the region had positive growth in the early 2000s before the recession late in the decade slowed growth nationwide. Recovery in the region has been what she called slow and cautious.
Bosland said a trend becoming com- monplace around California is that of
pop-up stores. She called it a wave of smaller chains, boutique stores and res- taurants that open for two to 24 months before moving to another location. Jose Morales an EDC client services manager who also attended the workshop, used seasonal Halloween stores as an example of pop-ups.
Bosland recommended that Reed- ley’s business vision for its downtown should include an element called a “third” place,what she called a space to occupy when not at work or home.
“It’s a familiar space where the entire family goes,” she said. “They eat, relax and socialize, and the employees have a genuine relationship with patrons.”
The workshop included recommenda- tions such as using retail technology and data to form a retail attraction strategy.
Bosland said the city also should consider the “experiential” aspect of proposed commercial and residential projects. Experiential means ways of pro- viding a retail experience that is difficult to sell online. Methods to achieve that in- volve combining technology, marketing and personalized customer service.
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