Our visit to a fun store at a mall near the University of Michigan

       

       While my mother and I were visiting a mall near the University of Michigan, we stumbled upon a store which intrigued us. “Why were we at a mall in Michigan by ourselves?”, you may be thinking. We don’t live in Michigan, and we don’t usually go to the mall by ourselves. Well, we decided to take a trip to Michigan so my father and my brother could tour the fossil collection at the University of Michigan, which happens to be my father’s favorite college football team. While my brother and father were touring the fossil collection, my mother and I decided to spend time at the mall near our hotel. The store we went to is called Around the World, which is run by Marketplace Manna. They sell fair trade products such as accessories, knitwear, home items, and other things which help missionary efforts from around the world. In order to do this, they distribute the merchandise from different livelihood groups and fair- trade organizations in places around the world. From their brochure, they state that they have merchandise from more than 40 countries around the world.

         This location opened in September 2021, which would be Marketplace Manna’s second location. Their first and main location is in Downtown Jackson, Michigan, which they relocated to from their previous location at the Jackson Crossing Mall. The owner of the business is Al Mellinger, who I met on our visit to this store. I believe he is a fun person to converse with and he was helpful in telling us what the products are and how they are beneficial to society. We ended up buying a heat pad made from cherry pits to help their great cause of helping families around the world.
While I was there, I learned some interesting things about the history of this store, which I was willing to ask from my spark of curiosity in the retail world. He told me things about his business which could indicate the health of the mall in general. They had two other locations which operated in indoor malls, one of them operated in the Meridian Mall which has since closed and the other which I previously mentioned at the Jackson Crossing. Marketplace Manna left both because of high mall rents and low traffic. Marketplace Manna being willing to try the Briarwood Mall might be a sign that the mall may still be doing well with business, with having more upscale stores not typical to malls the size of Briarwood such as the Apple Store, Eddie Bauer, and Sephora, and having typical mall stores being renovated with new looks.

         I am very interested in these questions and the owner was very helpful in answering these questions, which helped my interest in this store grow and made us want to spend more time here and around the mall to go shopping. If you are ever in the Ann Arbor area on vacation or to visit the University of Michigan, and visit the mall, I would definitely recommend visiting this store to help missionary efforts to lift people across the world out of poverty and to share the gospel to them. 

          Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.                              
                                                                                                               Matthew 28:19-20
                                                                                   

 Thanks for reading my blogpost and God bless!!