A pair of Okotoks businesses is trying to get through the dog days of summer during the COVID-19 pandemic in hopes of better days in the fall.
Balance Dance Centre is trying to stay in step until the fall, while Grand Slam Sports is getting by without the summer game.
“We have faced some challenges having to deal with this pandemic, but we made some adjustments, focusing on a lot of online sales,” said Pablo Forno owner of Grand Slam.
“Obviously, having the schools closed and with no baseball this summer and spring that affects us… We are looking at hopefully recovering by the fall.”
The schools were shut down in mid-March not too long before the Holy Trinity Academy Knights and Foothills Falcons were to get ready for the baseball season. Both schools’ baseball apparel is purchased at Grand Slam.
The company was also providing spring apparel for some schools in Calgary.
“With no school that created an impact on the revenue we rely on in the spring,” Forno said. “And with baseball not happening, that affects our
revenue a bit.”
Grand Slam Sports also makes the apparel for the Okotoks Dawgs – as well as operates the souvenir shop at Seaman Stadium. A popular place to shop with a Western Canadian Baseball League championship team’s swag for sale.
Forno estimates the
souvenir shop makes up about 12 to 15 per cent of Grand Slam’s annual income. He typically hires three or four youths to work in the store each summer.
All that has gone down on strikes as the WCBL has cancelled its season.
“But we are managing,” Forno said. “Our landlord has been amazing and we are taking advantage of some of the programs the government has put out as well.”
Grand Slam has applied for the 75 per cent wage subsidy.
“The staff is coming back in June regardless, but if we can get a little bit of help it will help us get through the summer a little bit easier,” Forno said.
Grand Slam laid off four staff members as the pandemic hit.
He said his baseball gear suppliers, Rawlings and Under Armour and others, have also been helpful. The majority of Grand Slam’s 2020 spring inventory had to be purchased in the summer of 2019.
“With having the store closed we haven’t been able to sell all of that,” Forno said.
He said his suppliers have helped with such things as bills payment plans.
“Everybody in the industry is in the same boat,” he said. “We are all working together.”
Grand Slam also supplies gear for the Dawgs Academy – which has started practising outdoors.
“We’ve been lucky enough to have that relationship with John Ircandia and the Dawgs going back to 2004,” Forno said. “That is huge for us… We rely heavily on the Dawgs and we’ve had that great relationship.”
Kristine Martin, of Balance Dance Centre, has also been able to keep in step despite closing its doors in the middle of March.
“We were able to jump on to virtual classes within less than two weeks,” Martin said. “We have a full schedule of classes running for all of our levels and all of our ages that are on-line.”
She estimates the studio will run 11 weeks of virtual before running a virtual recital in the near future.
While classes are maintaining, revenue is down.
“We give a fairly significant discount to our clients for the virtual classes because we aren’t able to be in studio,” she said. “We are doing the best to keep going.”
She said she hopes to run a summer or day camps in July or August.
“But our main launch is to get back in the studio, with all of the different safety protocols in the fall,” she said.
She said the studio has not been eligible for government funding. So far, they have been able to make the rent and keep the lights on.
She said all of the instructors are still with the studio but at a reduces rate.
They are trying to keep things as cheerful as possible. They recently put up a mural on its front window with the quote: “Life is not about waiting for the storm to pass it’s about learning to dance in the rain.”
“We thought that was appropriate for the times we are in,” Martin said. “We included that quote for our dancers as well as a thank-you to the front-line workers.”
