I Am Broad Ripple

Good Earth Natural Foods

January 25st 2015

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For our first Spotlight Saturday, Corey Ewing and Rachael Porter met with Rudy Nehrling and Bob Bennington of Good Earth for a short interview. They embody Broad Ripple in such a personal way that really hits home.

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We began by asking about the family business and legacy of Good Earth.

 

Rudy - “We've just had a really good relationship with the community. The store was always based on what customers want. Birkenstocks were brought in because customers wanted a shoe that was both comfortable and would last a long time. Same thing with a lot of our food and supplements. We’re really customer driven. We buy what customers want us to buy.”

 

Bob -  “There is a family connection that is very important to the future of the store. The store is meant to be run the way it is, only there are a lot of things that have been upgraded behind the scenes. I hear ‘I shopped here when I was a kid,’ a lot. We actually have multiple generations shopping here. We have grandchildren of people who first started shopping here. We've each had children that have worked here. Rudy’s children are very young and they've come in and done jobs here and there. My daughter has worked here, which is a great thing.”

 

Rudy - “We've had cousins, moms, aunts..”

Bob - “You could almost lock the doors and declare it a family reunion”

Rudy - “Makes it a fun environment and it doesn't always seem like work, so it’s a lot of fun”

 

Bob and Rudy along with Alix Litwack and a few others run a radio show called Another Day Of Living. It’s on WITT 91.9 FM and you can listen to it Saturdays at 11:30 AM & Wednesdays at 5:00 PM or even find older episodes on their website at http://www.anotherdayofliving.com/

 

Rudy - “It’s in it’s third year. It’s a locally produced show that's featured on a local community radio station, 91.9 FM WITT Radio, that was originally meant to be for kids programing but they quickly realized they didn't have enough content for that. We thought, what better way to get our message out there in our community than to have a weekly radio show. The concept is ‘unpredictable.’ You can turn it on and hear classical music; you can hear Bob Dylan; you can hear guys talking about the 20’s.  

 

Bob - “We approach people. I like the startled looks on their face and we’ll ask them a question that has to do with where we are.”

 

Rudy - “Each week we go somewhere, usually a local restaurant or business, and we sit down and maybe have a meal and we try to interview people sitting around us, try to get the staff see if we can get the proprietor and just have fun with it. It’s a way to feature our friends and neighbors here in Broad Ripple. You get people that are totally ‘Broad Ripple’ that are supporting the local community and you realize that it really is a village.”

 

Bob - “A 28 min show took us 8-9 hours and when we turned the disk in, they said, ‘What a wonderful show, but aren’t you going to play any music?’ We love to have input from the people who listen, song requests, ideas for shows.”

 

We asked them for some tips for being healthy in the new year.

 

Bob - “The advice that’s been given for many many years still stands. Eat well, exercise, think well and surround yourself with good things if you can. When tough things come along, try to deal with them and move along. All those things are so basic and they've existed forever. Nobody has reinvented the things that are necessary for a well being. For a store like us and other stores like us, what we're trying to do is deal with the environmental problems that have arisen and created problems with food.”

 

Rudy -  “Get enough sleep. Everything in moderation. Sure, sugar isn't great, but at the same time, as long as you have a healthier version of sugar, that's what’s important. I think eating food as opposed to things that look like food is a big deal. That’s why we have the bulk bins. That’s why we have local products. You know where they come from. It’s real food and then we try to do a lot with organic and non-GMO. A bill coming into the Senate is trying to push transparency just so you know what's on your plate. Where did those eggs come from? What's the process with them? You know, it’s like what you heard on Reading Rainbow, “Knowledge is Power.” The more you know, the better off you'll be in terms of what you put in your body.”

 

We asked what their thoughts were on the Whole Foods that potentially could come in to Broad Ripple.

 

Rudy - “We’ve always had a good influence to the community and we found out that two blocks away, they wanted to bring in a Whole Foods. Our biggest thing is, it’s always been a village and sure, things are going to change and sure, things are going to modernize, and some things need to go away, but our slogan was ‘Keep Broad Ripple Local.’ We can try as hard as we can to keep this still a village and keep this a local village. So, no matter what goes in there, when you talk about a 35,000 square-foot, two-acre, 89 feet-tall building with a four story parking garage, that’s not the concept that Broad Ripple has had. And while it may be a success, it’s kind of taking Broad Ripple in a different direction. If we don't support our local businesses, they'll go away. We had lots of support. We had over 5,000 people sign a petition that went all over to local businesses. It was something that really banded together the community, and people said, ‘We want to have a choice in our community.’ In May of 2013, Broad Ripple Village Association held a public meeting and hundreds, if not thousands of people showed up to this meeting and the lawyers and developers and representatives from the builders side stood up there and talked, and it was amazing to see the support for Broad Ripple, no matter what side you were on, that this meant a lot to the community. And thats the biggest thing that we can take from it, that this is our community and no matter if you work, play, or live in it, we should all have a choice.”

 

Bob - “We might look back and see this as a pivotal issue. The community involvement was really something. I’ve been in the area for quite a while and this was the first time I’ve seen something like that. The turnout for these meetings, the conversation that was ongoing, I think Broad Ripple was grappling with its identity. At what point do you stop calling yourself a village? This should still be a place that you look out and see people walking, not overwhelmed by places that are not to scale.”

 

Rudy - “Broad Ripple is known for a lot of things, and lately it hasn't been as positive, with the shootings and crime and parking issues. I love what I Am Broad Ripple is doing. Lets bring it back to what people love about Broad Ripple. It’s that it’s bohemian and people are creative and you get a lot of diversity and uniqueness in a small little area. Broad Ripple can mean a lot of different things to a lot of different people but lets have it still have meaning instead of it just being another strip mall and another place to go shopping.”

 

We finished our interview by asking how can people support them without just shopping.

 

Rudy - “We are a storefront and the way we do well is with shoppers. That’s the bottom line,

but what we discovered with the petitions and through social media, is that people who have moved away still wanted to support their community and support us. We created a t-shirt, to help offset the attorney fees, that was designed and printed by a Broad Ripple company, United States Of Indiana. People came to the meetings; they came to the protests. We helped clean up the Shell site, painted over the graffiti; we cleaned up. There’s been a lot of ways people have helped out without shopping and I also think then it became something they could take to a different part of the city and feel like they should have a part in their community. They wanted to know what was going on in their own back yard. It got people talking about the real issues.”

 

Bob - People are beginning to say things like “I live in Broad Ripple,’ and they are beginning  to have a stronger relationship to where they live, and I think that's important. That's what keeps community strong.”

 

By: Rachael Porter