Page 11 - BusinessWest October 28, 2024

RELATIONSHIPS
make all the difference
At Country Bank, we’re made a little different. We have the expertise, resources, and tools you need to turn opportunities into growth. It’s not just banking to us. We’re here to make a difference for your business and we believe that it starts with a great relationship.
Marc Strange considers it “disappointing” that the majority of the town wasn’t ready for a charter change.
Staff Photo
this town meeting. You’re going from that many people and that many voices down to a seven-member town council. I think the overriding sentiment was, the more voices you have, the more
democratic a process.”
Still, he added, “Easthampton is a city, Palmer is a city, Southbridge is a city. These are smaller towns, smaller than us, that have city forms of government.”
Strange had other goals when he was hired in 2022, including efforts to make the government more efficient, which has included balancing out staffing and combining the treasurer’s and collec- tor’s offices, and development efforts downtown.
“I grew up in the economic-development world, in municipal government, and that’s one of the rea- sons why I was so excited to join Ludlow,” he said. “There’s so much potential here.”
Location, Location, Location
“All the surrounding towns have
grown, and that
has contributed
to our growth.
And the town of Ludlow has grown tremendously since we started.”
Karen Randall has certainly seen plenty of change in Ludlow, most of it positive. In 1962, her father built the first store at Randall’s Farm, and in 1997, the building underwent a significant expansion, including a greenhouse and big produce department.
The business also added “a postage stamp of a kitchen,” she added, which would turn out to be entirely inadequate as the bakery, deli, and prepared-food operations took off as people’s lifestyles changed.
“The kind of customers we have are mostly local customers. They’re on their way home or on their way to work, and it’s very convenient for them to have home-cooked food — not cooked in their home, but cooked in our home. We prepare everything from scratch, for the most part. And that department just went way beyond our expectations. It’s almost 40% of everything we do now, which we never saw coming. The garden center is still a big part, and produce is still a huge part, but prepared food was a surprise.”
Guests also come for the homemade hard ice cream, as
Ludlow
Continued on page 13
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