The owners of a quirky sundries store in Milwaukee launched a GoFundMe campaign late last month in a last-ditch effort to save their business. Thousands have donated in response.
American Science & Surplus operates three stores out of southern Wisconsin and northern Illinois. The first location was opened in 1937 near Chicago. The Milwaukee store is the retailer’s largest location and was opened in 1981.
“It’s a hodgepodge mismatch of all different kinds of gadgets and gear and DIY stuff and STEM-related science projects,” Patrick Meyer, the owner of American Science & Surplus, told WPR’s “Wisconsin Today.” “There’s teachers’ stuff, there’s military surplus. We’ve got a little bit of everything and not a lot of any one thing.”
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Meyer has worked at the 88-year-old sundries store for more than four decades — it was his first job at 16. He bought the store in 2012.
He told WPR the business has faced a downturn after the COVID-19 pandemic and has had to move its supplies to a new warehouse.
“The online part of the business did well during COVID,” Meyer said. “But as COVID wound down, then so did our online business.”
On May 22, Meyer created the GoFundMe and called on patrons of the store to contribute.
His original goal was to raise $125,000. In less than one month, the store has raised more than $170,000.
“I can’t thank people enough,” Meyer said. “They’ve really gone above and beyond what I was expecting.”
The store’s current goal is to raise $200,000 to cover additional costs from moving from their warehouse.
Meyer tells WPR about the pressures facing this longtime Milwaukee staple and what keeps customers coming back.
The following interview was edited for clarity and brevity.
Rob Ferrett: People feel a connection with this store. What is bringing people like you and so many others to make this a long-term experience?
Patrick Meyer: It’s bigger than just being a store. Our employees create a fun atmosphere. They help with projects. The customers, who we call our “surpies,” help us help other customers.
There’s a big DIY community. Because we’re so family oriented, it’s generational. Parents bring their kids, and their kids bring their kids. It’s just been a long-standing love affair with our customers — whatever project they’re into, whether it’s DIY or STEM or maybe it’s a science fair project, maybe it’s for Halloween. A lot of times in the store, you’ll see customers talking to other customers about their projects and helping each other out.
RF: You created a GoFundMe to raise funds for American Science & Surplus after financial difficulties from the COVID-19 pandemic, plus the cost of moving supplies to a new warehouse. How did you react when donations started coming in?
PM: Over 3,000 people have donated to it, and I couldn’t thank them any more. Sometimes it’s hard for me to talk about. Having people care that much about the business that you’ve built, the community that we’ve built together is difficult to talk about sometimes.
In the retail stores, Milwaukee has done really well since we started the GoFundMe. They’ve had a lot of people just come in and purchase stuff or who wanted to donate in person. They come in, and they buy something above and beyond the price that we’re asking for. I can’t thank everybody enough.
RF: American Science & Surplus has three locations. You can’t go to any community in the United States and find another store like this. Do you see some value in having unique, distinct local businesses in a community that you’re not really going to find in another place?
PM: I hope so. It’s going to be a horrible world if there’s just Amazon and Walmart and Target for people to shop from. The strip that we’re at in Milwaukee has two other small businesses that we hope that people [shop at] after they stop by our store.
Losing a local small business is tragic. Some only make it a couple years, but some have been around a long time, and to have any one of them go out of business is really tragic. It’s the fiber of America. We were built on small businesses.
