Alline Anderson
Eco-entrepreneur

Websites:

• http://milkweedmercantile.com

I am the proprietor and Top Banana of the Milkweed Mercantile, which consists of an Eco Inn, Organic Cafe and Green General Store. The Mercantile makes its home in a spacious two-story, solar & wind-powered strawbale building at Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage in Northeastern Missouri. Designed as a business incubator for the community, the for-profit Mercantile is run cooperatively, with profit sharing, flexible hours, meals for the families of staff, paid daily siesta, and other humane perks.

We hope to make a difference not only in our immediate community, but in the wider community as well by setting an example of a business that is sustainable in all ways - environmentally, physically, socially and spiritually.

Our online store opened in August 2008, the rest will open in December, including seminars on everything from yoga to bread baking, and space for private and small business retreats. We invite you all to come sample the serenity and beauty of star-filled skies and brisk prairie winds (which power our wind turbine). For pictures please see: http://www.flickr.com/photos/milkweed/sets/72157603900100835/

A native Californian, I've found a new home here on the Midwest prairie. The Milkweed Mercantile is the culmination of a lifetime of experiences in retail, environmental activism, volunteerism and a slew of interests ranging from a passion for books to the perfect Tarte Tatin. Starting my own business is the most terrifying, most exhilarating thing I've ever done.

My background is in Customer Service, Visual Mercandising and group leadership. I've led (as a volunteer) over 28 national and international trips for the Sierra Club ranging from backpacking in the Sierra Nevada mountains to the Coast to Coast Walk in northern England. In 1999 my husband and I decided to try to walk our environmental talk and relocated from a live-work loft space in Berkeley to a strawbale home in Missouri. Learning how to live sustainably has been a great adventure!

I would love to get to know more business owners and share experiences, both good and bad. I am having a great time starting and running a business, and am learning a lot, but there always seems to be something I don't yet know. It would be nice to learn something the easy way rather than the more , um, character-building way!