Small Business Superstars of Sandy: Bishop's Orchard

Guilford was hit hard by Sandy with damage, downed trees and wires, and widespread power outages. But through it all Bishop's Orchard, a town staple, was here for the town providing food, water and even giving us back our lost Halloween spirit.

Bishop's closed Monday evening, the day of the storm around 3 PM so it's employees could return home safely. After the storm hit overnight, Bishops was open the next day, Tuesday morning, at 9 AM running on generator power.

Bishop's has been providing many essentials for the town as many have been out of power. "Folks can have free water here, they just need to bring their own containers," said Keith Bishop. "We've been providing coffee for a good price, cider, essential non-perishables, other food, and ice."

How did they make that ice one might ask? "We used empty cider jugs we had on hand," said Bishop. "When those were all used up, we switched to one quart soup containers."

"We were prepared for Irene last year, and then we learned more from that experience. We applied that to this year, which made things run very smoothly. We had a meeting Monday morning with the staff on our pre-Sandy plans, and we had our orders all in line ahead of the game."

Bishop's Orchards also brought Halloween Spirit back to Guilford. After Halloween was officially cancelled for safety reasons, Bishop's held free pumpkin carving on Halloween. As opposed to asking for payment for the pumpkins, Bishop's is asking for donations for the Women and Family Life Center.

"We've had such a great response from the event, we've decided to continue it through the weekend," said Bishop. "So far, we've raised $750 in donations for the Center."

As of yesterday afternoon, Bishop's was still without power and running off generators. "We're happy we've been able to be here for our community," said Bishop. "We've done our best to provide for residents in any way we can."