Lynn & Perin offered curbside and private shopping for a while and in winter 2021 was busy enough to stay open every day, thanks to an influx of people who ventured north to escape highly populated areas, and never left.

Hill Top fortuitously added drive-through service in 2019, prior to the pandemic, and that stood it well to offer sandwiches in 2020. But then came summer US-31 construction by the shop, ultimately closing down the shop’s access street on the Fourth of July. “Our July was awful,” Mekas said.

Hill Top and others have been among businesses to receive grants from Venture North’s Regional Resiliency Program aimed at helping small businesses survive the pandemic and rebound, aiding with payroll, cash flow, expenses and a variety of needs.

All the while, Mekas had her own battle, with stage 4 breast cancer. First diagnosed with cancer in October 2019, she was in chemotherapy in early spring 2020 as pandemic shutdowns and customer safety, sanitation and health requirements cascaded.

“Doctors would constantly tell me to take precautions for myself, and then all the COVID stuff happened, and I’m supposed to be taking precautions for other people. I was very emotional during the whole thing. With a five-year-old (daughter), I didn’t know what was happening,” she said.

“I’m very stubborn,” Mekas said. “I love, love, love my businesses. I kept saying, I can’t close.”

After a double mastectomy and radiation, Mekas said she now feels good. Her floral shop at the holidays is a winter wonderland, filled top to bottom with trees, greenery, plants, flowers, décor, and ornaments – three trees alone decorated with first responder and health care worker ornaments. She ordered “tons and tons” of strings of lights – a nod to retail store stock that ran out last year – and while there have been supply issues like plastic flower containers, glass vases and floral adhesive glue, Mekas says she’s been able to get what she wanted to stock holiday décor.

But she had a method: “I ordered a lot more than normal… knowing I wasn’t going to get it all.”

Mekas said her staffing levels are good with 20 employees between the four businesses, including two managers that she said will help her add events and ways to give back to the community. It’s her 15th year holding a Victoria’s Floral holiday party for people to shop amid music, refreshments and discounts, and the seventh year to hold a free Thanksgiving dinner at Perks for community members, complete with traditional trimmings and turkeys that husband Chris starts smoking well before dawn.

Mekas said customers, many distanced and quiet last year, are this holiday season “very happy, talkative, animated.” She’s “feeling really good” about the holidays for her small businesses that, like so many others, are big parts of community and economy.

Throughout the state, the pandemic accelerated a sales shift to e-commerce and a July study by Lansing-based Public Sector Consultants notes that “as consumers continue to purchase more online and mail-order goods, local businesses and economies are losing potential business.”

The study finds that if consumers shifted one out of every ten remote purchases to a local Michigan retailer, that would generate more than 14,000 jobs in Michigan including more than 8,500 added directly in retail. The study, which also cites heightened economic output, wages and benefits, was prepared for the Retailers Association, which through a “Buy Nearby” campaign encourages Michiganders to support their communities by shopping at nearby retailers.

Despite the rise in online sales, though, the personal shopping experience remains strong. E-commerce and remote sales like mail and phone orders were 16.8 percent of all U.S. retail sales in 2020, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, leaving 83.2 percent that were at brick-and-mortar retailers. “People do still like to shop in-person,” Hallan said.